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                     THE WIZARD'S SON

                         A Novel

                     BY MRS. OLIPHANT

    AUTHOR OF "THE CURATE IN CHARGE," "YOUNG MUSGRAVE," ETC.


    IN THREE VOLUMES
    VOL. I.

    London
    MACMILLAN AND CO.
    1884

    [_The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved_]

    LONDON:
    R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS,
    BREAD STREET HILL.




THE WIZARD'S SON.




CHAPTER I.


The Methvens occupied a little house in the outskirts of a little town
where there was not very much going on of any description, and still
less which they could take any share in, being, as they were, poor and
unable to make any effective response to the civilities shown to them.
The family consisted of three persons--the mother, who was a widow with
one son; the son himself, who was a young man of three or four and
twenty; and a distant cousin of Mrs. Methven's, who lived with her,
having no other home. It was not a very happy household. The mother had
a limited income and an anxious temper; the son a somewhat volatile and
indolent disposition, and no ambition at all as to his future, nor
anxiety as to what was going to happen to him in life. This, as may be
supposed, was enough to introduce many uneasy elements into their joint
existence; and the third of the party, Miss Merivale, was not of the
class of the peacemakers to whom Scripture allots a special blessing.
She had no amiable glamour in her eyes, but saw her friends'
imperfections with a clearness of sight which is little conducive to
that happy progress of affairs which is called "getting on." The
Methvens were sufficiently proud to keep their difficulties out of the
public eye, but on very many occasions, unfortunately, it had become
very plain to themselves that they did not "get on." It was not any want
of love. Mrs. Methven was herself aware, and her friends were in the
constant habit of saying, that she had sacrificed everything for Walter.
Injudicious friends are fond of making such statements, by way, it is to
be supposed, of increasing the devotion and gratitude of the child to
the parent: but the result is, unfortunately, very often the exact
contrary of what is desired--for no one likes to have his duty in this
respect pointed out to him, and whatever good people may think, it is
not in itself an agreeable thought that "sacrifices" have been made for
one, and an obligation placed upon one's shoulders from the beginning of
time, independent of any wish or claim upon the part of the person
served. The makers of sacrifices have seldom the reward which
surrounding spectators, and in many cases themselves, think their due.
Mrs. Methven herself would probably have been at a loss to name what
were the special sacrifices she had made for Walter. She had remained a
widow, but that she would have been eager to add was no sacrifice. She
had pinched herself more or less to find the means for his education,
which had been of what is supposed in England to be the best kind: and
she had, while he was a boy, subordinated her own tastes and pleasures
to his, and eagerly sought out everything that was likely to be
agreeable to him. When they took their yearly journey--as it is considered
necessary for him--places that Walter liked, or where he could find
amusement, or had friends, were eagerly sought for. "Women," Mrs.
Methven said, "can make themselves comfortable anywhere; but a boy, you
know, is quite different." "Quite," Miss Merivale would say: "Oh, if you
only knew them as well as we do; they are creatures entirely without
resources. You must put their toys into their very hands." "There is no
question of toys with Walter--he has plenty of resources. It is not
that," Mrs. Methven would explain, growing red. "I hope I am not one of
the silly mothers that thrust their children upon everybody: but, of
course, a boy must be considered. Everybody who has had to do with
men--or boys--knows that they must be considered." A woman whose life
has been mixed up with these troublesome beings feels the superiority of
her experience to those who know nothing about them. And in this way,
without spoiling him or treating him with ridiculous devotion, as the
king of her fate, Walter had been "considered" all his life.

For the rest, Mrs. Methven had, it must be allowed, lived a much more
agreeable life in the little society of Sloebury when her son was young
than she did now that he had come to years, mis-named, of discretion.
Then she had given her little tea-parties, or even a small occasional
dinner, at which her handsome boy would make his appearance when it was
holiday time, interesting everybody; or, when absent, would still
furnish a very pleasant subject of talk to the neighbours, who thought
his mother did a great deal too much for him, but still were pleased to
discuss a boy who was having the best of educations, and at a public
school. In those days she felt herself very comfortable in Sloebury, and
was asked to all the best houses, and felt a modest pride in the
certainty that she was able to offer something in return. But matters
were very different when Walter was four-and-twenty instead of fourteen.
By that time it was apparent that he was not going to take the world by
storm, or set the Thames on fire; and, though she had been too sensible
to brag, Mrs. Methven had thought both these things possible, and
perhaps had allowed it to be perceived that she considered something
great, something out of the way, to be Walter's certain career. But
twenty-four is, as she said herself, so different! He had been
unsuccessful in some of his examinations, and for others he had not been
"properly prepared." His mother did not take refuge in the thought that
the examiners were partial or the trials unfair; but there was naturally
always a word as to the reason why he did not succeed--he had not been
"properly prepared." He knew of one only a few days before the eventful
moment, and at this time of day, she asked indignantly, when everything
is got by competition, how is a young man who has not "crammed" to get
the better of one who has? The fact remained that at twenty-four,
Walter, evidently a clever fellow, with a great many endowments, had got
nothing to do; and, what was worse--a thing which his mother, indeed,
pretended to be unconscious of, but which everybody else in the town
remarked upon--he was not in the least concerned about this fact, but
took his doing nothing quite calmly as the course of nature, and neither
suffered from it, nor made any effort to place himself in a different
position. He "went in for" an examination when it was put before him as
a thing to do, and took his failure more than philosophically when he
failed, as, as yet, he had always done: and, in the mean time,
contentedly lived on, without disturbing himself, and tranquilly let the
time go by--the golden time which should have shaped his life.

This is not a state of affairs which can bring happiness to any
household. There is a kind of parent--or rather it should be said of a
mother, for no parent of the other sex is supposed capable of so much
folly--to whom everything is good that her child, the cherished object
of her affections, does; and this is a most happy regulation of nature,
and smooths away the greatest difficulties of life for many
simple-hearted folk, without doing half so much harm as is attributed to
it; for disapproval has little moral effect, and lessens the happiness
of all parties, without materially lessening the sins of the erring.
But, unfortunately, Mrs. Methven was not of this happy kind. She saw her
son's faults almost too clearly, and they gave her the most poignant
pain. She was a proud woman, and that he should suffer in the opinion of
the world was misery and grief to her. She was stung to the heart by
disappointment in the failure of her many hopes and projects for him.
She was stricken with shame to think of all the fine things that had
been predicted of Walter in his boyish days, and that not one of them
had come true. People had ceased now to speak of the great things that
Walter would do. They asked "_What_ was he going to do?" in an entirely
altered tone, and this went to her heart. Her pride suffered the most
terrible blow. She could not bear the thought; and though she maintained
a calm face to the world, and represented herself as entirely satisfied,
Walter knew otherwise, and had gradually replaced his old careless
affection for his mother by an embittered opposition and resistance to
her, which made both their lives wretched enough. How it was that he did
not make an effort to escape from her continual remonstrances, her
appeals and entreaties, her censure and criticism, it is very difficult
to tell. To have gone away, and torn her heart with anxiety, but
emancipated himself from a yoke which it was against the dignity of his
manhood to bear, would have been much more natural. But he had no
money, and he had not the energy to seize upon any way of providing for
himself. Had such an opportunity fallen at his feet he would probably
have accepted it with fervour; but Fortune did not put herself out of
the way to provide for him, nor he to be provided for. Notwithstanding
the many scenes which took place in the seclusion of that poor little
house, when the mother, what with love, shame, mortification, and
impatience, would all but rave in impotent passion, appealing to him, to
the pride, the ambition, the principle which so far as could be seen the
young man did not possess, Walter held upon his way with an obstinate
pertinacity, and did nothing. How he managed to do this without losing
all self-respect and every better feeling it is impossible to say; but
he did so somehow, and was still "a nice enough fellow," notwithstanding
that everybody condemned him; and had not even lost the good opinion of
the little society, though it was unanimous in blame. The only way in
which he responded to his mother's remonstrances and complaints was by
seeking his pleasure and such occupation as contented him--which
was a little cricket now and then, a little lawn-tennis, a little
flirtation--as far away from her as possible; and by being as little at
home as possible. His temper was a little spoilt by the scenes which
awaited him when he went home; and these seemed to justify to himself
his gradual separation from his mother's house: but never induced him to
sacrifice, or even modify, his own course. He appeared to think that he
had a justification for his conduct in the opposition it met with; and
that his pride was involved in the necessity for never giving in. If he
had been let alone, he represented to himself, everything would have
been different; but to yield to this perpetual bullying was against
every instinct. And even the society which disapproved so much gave a
certain encouragement to Walter in this point of view: for it was Mrs.
Methven whom everybody blamed. It was her ridiculous pride, or her
foolish indulgence, or her sinful backing-up of his natural indolence;
even some people thought it was her want of comprehension of her son
which had done it, and that Walter would have been entirely a different
person in different hands. If she had not thought it a fine thing to
have him appear as a useless fine gentleman above all necessity of
working for his living, it was incredible that he could have allowed the
years to steal by without making any exertion. This was what the town
decided, not without a good deal of sympathy for Walter. What could be
expected? Under the guidance of a foolish mother, a young man always
went wrong; and in this case he did not go wrong, poor fellow! he only
wasted his existence, nothing worse. Sloebury had much consideration for
the young man.

Perhaps it added something to the exasperation with which Mrs. Methven
saw all her efforts fail that she had some perception of this, and knew
that it was supposed to be her fault. No doubt in her soul it added to
the impatience and indignation and pain with which she contemplated the
course of affairs, which she was without strength to combat, yet could
not let alone. Now and then, indeed, she did control herself so far as
to let them alone, and then there was nothing but tranquillity and peace
in the house. But she was a conscientious woman, and, poor soul! she had
a temper--the very complacency and calm with which her son went upon his
way, the approval he showed of her better conduct when she left him to
his own devices, struck her in some moments with such sudden indignation
and pain, that she could no longer contain herself. He, who might have
been anything he pleased, to be nothing! He, of whom everybody had
predicted such great things! At such moments the sight of Walter
smiling, strolling along with his hands in his pockets, excited her
almost to frenzy. Poor lady! So many women would have been proud of
him--a handsome young fellow in flannels, with his cricket bat or his
racquet when occasion served. But love and injured pride were bitter in
her heart, and she could not bear the sight. All this while, however,
nobody knew anything about the scenes that arose in the little house,
which preserved a show of happiness and tender union long after the
reality was gone. Indeed, even Miss Merivale, who had unbounded
opportunities of knowing, took a long time to make up her mind that
Walter and his mother did not "get on."

Such was the unfortunate state of affairs at the time when this history
begins. The Methvens were distantly connected, it was known, with a
great family in Scotland, which took no notice whatever of them, and,
indeed, had very little reason so to do, Captain Methven being long
since dead, and his widow and child entirely unknown to the noble house,
from which it was so great an honour to derive a little, much-diluted,
far-off drop of blood, more blue and more rich than the common. It is
possible that had the connection been by Mrs. Methven's side she would
have known more about it, and taken more trouble to keep up her
knowledge of the family. But it was not so, and she had even in her
younger days been conscious of little slights and neglects which had
made her rather hostile than otherwise to the great people from whom her
husband came. "I know nothing about the Erradeens," she would say; "they
are much too grand to take any notice of us: and I am too proud to seek
any notice from them."

"I am afraid, my dear, there is a good deal in that," said old Mrs.
Wynn, the wife of the old rector, shaking her white head. This lady was
a sort of benign embodiment of justice in Sloebury. She punished nobody,
but she saw the right and wrong with a glance that was almost
infallible, and shook her head though she never exacted any penalty.

Here Miss Merivale would seize the occasion to strike in--

"Prejudice is prejudice," she said, "whatever form it takes. A lord has
just as much chance of being nice as an--apothecary." This was said
because the young doctor, newly admitted into his father's business,
who thought no little of himself, was within reach, and just then caught
Miss Merivale's eye.

"That is a very safe speech, seeing there are neither lords nor
apothecaries here," he said with the blandest smile. He was not a man to
be beaten at such a game.

"But a lord may have influence, you know. For Walter's sake I would not
lose sight of him," said Mrs. Wynn.

"You cannot lose sight of what you have never seen: besides, influence
is of no consequence nowadays. Nobody can do anything for you--save
yourself," said Mrs. Methven with a little sigh. Her eyes turned
involuntarily to where Walter was. He was always in the middle of
everything that was going on. Among the Sloebury young people he had a
little air of distinction, or so at least his mother thought. She was
painfully impartial, and generally, in her anxiety, perceived his bad
points rather than his good ones; but as she glanced at the group, love
for once allowed itself to speak, though always with an accent peculiar
to the character of the thinker. She allowed to herself that he had an
air of distinction, a something more than the others--alas, that nothing
ever came of it! The others all, or almost all, were already launched in
the world. They were doing or trying to do something--whereas Walter!
But she took care that nobody should hear that irrepressible sigh.

"I am very sorry for it," said Mrs. Wynn, "for there are many people
who would never push for themselves, and yet do very well indeed when
they are put in the way."

"I am all for the pushing people," said Miss Merivale. "I like the new
state of affairs. When every one stands for himself, and you get just as
much as you work for, there will be no grudges and sulkings with
society. Though I'm a Tory, I like every man to make his own way."

"A lady's politics are never to be calculated upon," said the Rector,
who was standing up against the fire on his own hearth, rubbing his old
white hands. "It is altogether against the principles of Toryism, my
dear lady, that a man should make his own way. It is sheer democracy. As
for that method of examinations, it is one of the most levelling
principles of the time--it is one of Mr. Gladstone's instruments for the
destruction of society. When the son of a cobbler is just as likely to
come to high command as your son or mine, what is to become of the
country?" the old clergyman said, lifting those thin white hands.

Mr. Gladstone's name was as a firebrand thrown into the midst of this
peaceable little country community. The speakers all took fire. They
thought that there was no doubt about what was going to come of the
country. It was going to destruction as fast as fate could carry it.
When society had dropped to pieces, and the rabble had come uppermost,
and England had become a mere name, upon which all foreign nations
should trample, and wild Irishmen dance war dances, and Americans
expectorate, then Mr. Gladstone would be seen in his true colours. While
this was going on, old Mrs. Wynn sat in her easy-chair and shook her
head. She declared always that she was no politician. And young Walter
Methven, attracted by the sudden quickening of the conversation which
naturally attended the introduction of this subject, came forward, ready
in the vein of opposition which was always his favourite attitude.

"Mr. Gladstone must be a very great man," he said. "I hear it is a sign
of being in society when you foam at the mouth at the sound of his
name."

"You young fellows think it fine to be on the popular side; but wait
till you are my age," cried one of the eager speakers. "It will not
matter much to me. There will be peace in my days." "But wait," cried
another, "and see how you will like it when everything topples down
together, the crown and the state, and the aristocracy, and public
credit, and national honour, and property, and the constitution,
and----"

So many anxious and alarmed politicians here spoke together that the
general voice became inarticulate, and Walter Methven, representing the
opposition, was at liberty to laugh.

"Come one, come all!" he cried, backed up by the arm of the sofa, upon
which Mrs. Wynn sat shaking her head. "It would be a fine thing for me
and all the other proletarians. Something would surely fall our way."

His mother watched him, standing up against the sofa, confronting them
all, with her usual exasperated and angry affection. She thought, as she
looked at him, that there was nothing he was not fit for. He was clever
enough for Parliament; he might have been prime minister--but he was
nothing! nothing, and likely to be nothing, doing nothing, desiring
nothing. Her eye fell on young Wynn, the rector's nephew, who had just
got a fellowship at his college, and on the doctor's son, who was just
entering into a share of his father's practice, and on Mr. Jeremy the
young banker, whose attentions fluttered any maiden to whom he might
address them. They were Walter's contemporaries, and not one of them was
worthy, she thought, to be seen by the side of her boy; but they had all
got before him in the race of life. They were something and he was
nothing. It was not much wonder if her heart was sore and angry. When
she turned round to listen civilly to something that was said to her,
her face was contracted and pale. It was more than she could bear. She
made a move to go away before any of the party was ready, and disturbed
Miss Merivale in the midst of a _tête-à-tête_, which was a thing not
easily forgiven.

Walter walked home with them in great good humour, but his mother knew
very well that he was not coming in. He was going to finish the evening
elsewhere. If he had come in would she have been able to restrain
herself? Would she not have fallen upon him, either in anger or in
grief, holding up to him the examples of young Wynn and young Jeremy and
the little doctor? She knew she would not have been able to refrain, and
it was almost a relief to her, though it was another pang, when he
turned away at the door.

"I want to speak to Underwood about to-morrow," he said.

"What is there about to-morrow? Of all the people in Sloebury Captain
Underwood is the one I like least," she said. "Why must you always have
something to say to him when every one else is going to bed?"

"I am not going to bed, nor is he," said Walter lightly.

Mrs. Methven's nerves were highly strung. Miss Merivale had passed in
before them, and there was nobody to witness this little struggle, which
she knew would end in nothing, but which was inevitable. She grasped him
by the arm in her eagerness and pain.

"Oh, my boy!" she said, "come in, come in, and think of something more
than the amusement of to-morrow. Life is not all play, though you seem
to think so. For once listen to me, Walter--oh, listen to me! You cannot
go on like this. Think of all the others; all at work, every one of
them, and you doing nothing."

"Do you want me to begin to do something now," said Walter, "when you
have just told me everybody was going to bed?"

"Oh! if I were you," she cried in her excitement, "I would rest neither
night nor day. I would not let it be said that I was the last, and every
one of them before me."

Walter shook himself free of her detaining hold. "Am I to be a dustman,
or a scavenger, or--what?" he said, contemptuously. "I know no other
trades that are followed at this hour."

Mrs. Methven had reached the point at which a woman has much ado not to
cry in the sense of impotence and exasperation which such an argument
brings. "It is better to do anything than to do nothing," she cried,
turning away from him and hastening in at the open door.

He paused a moment, as if doubtful what to do; there was something in
her hasty withdrawal which for an instant disposed him to follow, and
she paused breathless, with a kind of hope, in the half-light of the
little hall; but the next moment his footsteps sounded clear and quick
on the pavement, going away. Mrs. Methven waited until they were almost
out of hearing before she closed the door. Angry, baffled, helpless,
what could she do? She wiped a hot tear from the corner of her eye
before she went into the drawing-room, where her companion, always on
the alert, had already turned up the light of the lamp, throwing an
undesired illumination upon her face, flushed and troubled from this
brief controversy.

"I thought you were never coming in," said Miss Merivale, "and that
open door sends a draught all through the house."

"Walter detained me for a moment to explain some arrangements he has to
make for to-morrow," Mrs. Methven said with dignity. "He likes to keep
me _au courant_ of his proceedings."

Miss Merivale was absolutely silenced by this sublime assumption,
notwithstanding the flush of resentment, the glimmer of moisture in the
mother's eye.




CHAPTER II.


Walter walked along the quiet, almost deserted street with a hasty step
and a still hastier rush of disagreeable thoughts. There was, he felt,
an advantage in being angry, in the sensation of indignant resistance to
a petty tyranny. For a long time past he had taken refuge in this from
every touch of conscience and sense of time lost and opportunities
neglected. He was no genius, but he was not so dull as not to know that
his life was an entirely unsatisfactory one, and himself in the wrong
altogether; everything rotten in the state of his existence, and a great
deal that must be set right one time or another in all his habits and
ways. The misfortune was that it was so much easier to put off this
process till to-morrow than to begin it to-day. He had never been roused
out of the boyish condition of mind in which a certain resistance to
authority was natural, and opposition to maternal rule and law a sort of
proof of superiority and independence. Had this been put into words, and
placed before him as the motive of much that he did, no one would have
coloured more angrily or resented more hotly the suggestion; and yet in
the bottom of his heart he would have known it to be true. All through
his unoccupied days he carried with him the sense of folly, the
consciousness that he could not justify to himself the course he was
pursuing. The daily necessity of justifying it to another was almost the
sole thing that silenced his conscience. His mother, who kept "nagging"
day after day, who was never satisfied, whose appeals he sometimes
thought theatrical, and her passion got up, was his sole defence against
that self-dissatisfaction which is the severest of all criticisms. If
she would but let him alone, leave him to his own initiative, and not
perpetually endeavour to force a change which to be effectual, as all
authorities agreed, must come of itself! He was quite conscious of the
inadequacy of this argument, and in his heart felt that it was a poor
thing to take advantage of it; but yet, on the surface of his mind, put
it forward and made a bulwark of it against his own conscience. He did
so now as he hurried along, in all the heat that follows a personal
encounter. If she would but let him alone! But he could not move a step
anywhere, could not make an engagement, could not step into a friend's
rooms, as he was going to do now, without her interference. The
relations of a parent to an only child are not the same as those that
exist between a father and mother and the different members of a large
family. It has been usual to consider them in one particular light as
implying the closest union and mutual devotion. But there is another
point of view in which to consider the question. They are so near to
each other, and the relationship so close, that there is a possibility
of opposition and contrariety more trying, more absorbing, than any
other except that between husband and wife. A young son does not always
see the necessity of devotion to a mother who is not very old, who has
still many sources of pleasure apart from himself, and who is not
capable, perhaps, on her side, of the undiscriminating worship which is
grandmotherly, and implies a certain weakness and dimness of perception
in the fond eyes that see everything in a rosy, ideal light. This fond
delusion is often in its way a moral agent, obliging the object of it to
fulfil what is expected of him, and reward the full and perfect trust
which is given so unhesitatingly. But in this case it was not possible.
The young man thought, or persuaded himself, that his mother's vexatious
watch over him, and what he called her constant suspicion and doubt of
him, had given him a reason for the disgust and impatience with which he
turned from her control. He pictured to himself the difference which a
father's larger, more generous sway would have made in him; to that he
would have answered, he thought, like a ship to its helm, like an army
to its general. But this petty rule, this perpetual fault-finding,
raised up every faculty in opposition. Even when he meant the best, her
words of warning, her reminders of duty, were enough to set him all
wrong again. He thought, as a bad husband often thinks when he is
conscious of the world's disapproval, that it was her complaints that
were the cause. And when he was reminded by others, well-meaning but
injudicious, of all he owed to his mother, his mind rose yet more
strongly in opposition, his spirit refused the claim. This is a very
different picture from that of the widow's son whose earliest
inspiration is his sense of duty to his mother, and adoring gratitude
for her care and love--but it is perhaps as true a one. A young man may
be placed in an unfair position by the excessive claim made upon his
heart and conscience in this way, and so Walter felt it. He might have
given all that, and more, if nothing had been asked of him; but when he
was expected to feel so much, he felt himself half justified in feeling
nothing. Thus the situation had become one of strained and continual
opposition. It was a kind of duel, in which the younger combatant at
least--the assailed person, whose free-will and independence were
hampered by such perpetual requirements--never yielded a step. The other
might do so, by turns throwing up her arms altogether, but not he.

It was with this feeling strong in his mind, and affecting his temper as
nothing else does to such a degree, that he hastened along the street
towards the rooms occupied by Captain Underwood, a personage whom the
ladies of Sloebury were unanimous in disliking. Nobody knew exactly
where it was that he got his military title. He did not belong to any
regiment in her Majesty's service. He had not even the humble claim of a
militia officer; yet nobody dared say that there was anything fictitious
about him, or stigmatise the captain as an impostor. Other captains and
colonels and men-at-arms of undoubted character supported his claims; he
belonged to one or two well-known clubs. An angry woman would sometimes
fling an insult at him when her husband or son came home penniless after
an evening in his company, wondering what they could see in an
under-bred fellow who was no more a captain (she would say in her wrath)
than she was; but of these assertions there was no proof, and the
vehemence of them naturally made the captain's partisans more and more
eager in his favour. He had not been above six months in Sloebury, but
everybody knew him. There was scarcely an evening in which half-a-dozen
men did not congregate in his rooms, drawn together by that strange
attraction which makes people meet who do not care in the least for each
other's company, nor have anything to say to each other, yet are
possibly less vacant in society than when alone, or find the murmur of
many voices, the smoke of many cigars, exhilarating and agreeable. It
was not every evening that the cards were produced. The captain was
wary; he frightened nobody; he did not wish to give occasion to the
tremors of the ladies, whom he would have conciliated even, if he had
been able; but there are men against whom the instinct of all women
rises, as there are women from whom all men turn. It was only now and
then that he permitted play. He spoke indeed strongly against it on many
occasions. "What do you want with cards?" he would say. "A good cigar
and a friend to talk to ought to be enough for any man." But twice or
thrice in a week his scruples would give way. He was a tall, well-formed
man, of an uncertain age, with burning hazel eyes, and a scar on his
forehead got in that mysterious service to which now and then he made
allusion, and which his friends concluded must have been in some foreign
legion, or with Garibaldi, or some other irregular warfare. There were
some who thought him a man, old for his age, of thirty-five, and some
who, concluding him young for his age, and well preserved, credited him
with twenty years more; but thirty-five or fifty-five, whichever it was,
he was erect and strong, and well set up, and possessed an amount of
experience and apparent knowledge of the world, at which the striplings
of Sloebury admired and wondered, and which even the older men
respected, as men in the country respect the mention of great names and
incidents that have become historical. He had a way of recommending
himself even to the serious, and would now and then break forth, as if
reluctantly, into an account of some instance of faith or patience on
the battlefield or the hospital which made even the rector declare that
to consider Underwood as an irreligious man was both unjust and unkind.
So strong was the prejudice of the women, however, that Mrs. Wynn,
always charitable, and whose silent protest was generally only made when
the absent were blamed, shook her head at this testimony borne in favour
of the Captain. She had no son to be led away, and her husband it need
not be said, considering his position, was invulnerable; but with all
her charity she could not believe in the religion of Captain Underwood.
His rooms were very nice rooms in the best street in Sloebury, and if
his society was what is called "mixed," yet the best people were
occasionally to be met there, as well as those who were not the best.

There was a little stir in the company when Walter entered. To tell the
truth, notwithstanding the wild mirth and dissipation which the ladies
believed to go on in Captain Underwood's rooms, the society assembled
there was at the moment dull and in want of a sensation. There had not
been anything said for the course of two minutes at least. There was no
play going on, and the solemn puff of smoke from one pair of lips after
another would have been the height of monotony had it not been the
wildest fun and gratification. The men in the room took pipes and cigars
out of their mouths to welcome the new-comer. "Hallo, Walter!" they all
said in different tones; for in Sloebury the use of Christian names was
universal, everybody having known everybody else since the moment of
their birth.

"Here comes Methven," said the owner of the rooms (it was one of his
charms, in the eyes of the younger men, that he was not addicted to this
familiarity), "in the odour of sanctity. It will do us all good to have
an account of the rector's party. How did you leave the old ladies, my
excellent boy?"

"Stole away like the fox, by Jove," said the hunting man, who was the
pride of Sloebury.

"More like the mouse with the old cats after it," said another wit.

Now Walter had come in among them strong in his sense of right and in
his sense of wrong, feeling himself at the same moment a sorry fool and
an injured hero, a sufferer for the rights of man; and it would have
been of great use to him in both these respects to have felt himself
step into a superior atmosphere, into the heat of a political
discussion, or even into noisy amusement, or the passion of
play--anything which would rouse the spirits and energies, and show the
action of a larger life. But to feel his own arrival a sort of godsend
in the dulness, and to hear nothing but the heavy puff of all the smoke,
and the very poor wit with which he was received, was sadly
disconcerting, and made him more and more angry with himself and the
circumstances which would give him no sort of support or comfort.

"The old ladies," he said, "were rather more lively than you fellows.
You look as if you had all been poisoned in your wine, like the men in
the opera, and expected the wall to open and the monks and the coffins
to come in."

"I knew that Methven would bring us some excellent lesson," said Captain
Underwood. "Remember that we have all to die. Think, my friends, upon
your latter end."

"Jump up here and give us a sermon, Wat."

"Don't tease him, he's dangerous."

"The old ladies have been too much for him."

This went on till Walter had settled down into his place, and lighted
his pipe like the rest. He looked upon them with disenchanted eyes; not
that he had ever entertained any very exalted opinion of his company;
but to-night he was out of sympathy with all his surroundings, and he
felt it almost a personal offence that there should be so little to
attract and excite in this manly circle which thought so much more of
itself than of any other, and was so scornful of the old ladies who
after all were not old ladies: but the graver members of the community
in general, with an ornamental adjunct of young womankind. On ordinary
occasions no doubt Walter would have chimed in with the rest, but
to-night he was dissatisfied and miserable, not sure of any sensation in
particular, but one of scorn and distaste for his surroundings. He would
have felt this in almost any conceivable case, but in the midst of this
poor jesting and would-be wit, the effect was doubled. Was it worth
while for this to waste his time, to offend the opinion of all his
friends? Such thoughts must always come in similar circumstances. Even
in the most brilliant revelry there will be a pause, a survey of the
position, a sense, however unwilling that the game is not worth the
candle. But here! They were all as dull as ditch water, he said to
himself. Separately there was scarcely one whom he would have selected
as an agreeable companion, and was it possible by joining many dulnesses
together to produce a brilliant result? There was no doubt that Walter's
judgment was jaundiced that evening; for he was not by any means so
contemptuous of his friends on ordinary occasions; but he had been eager
to find an excuse for himself, to be able to say that here was real life
and genial society in place of the affected solemnity of the proper
people. When he found himself unable to do this, he was struck as by a
personal grievance, and sat moody and abstracted, bringing a chill upon
everybody, till one by one the boon companions strolled away.

"A pretty set of fellows to talk of dulness," he cried, with a little
burst, "as if they were not dull beyond all description themselves."

"Come, Methven, you are out of temper," said Captain Underwood. "They
are good fellows enough when you are in the vein for them. Something has
put you out of joint."

"Nothing at all," cried Walter, "except the sight of you all sitting as
solemn as owls pretending to enjoy yourselves. At the rectory one yawned
indeed, it was the genius of the place--but to hear all those dull dogs
laughing at that, as if they were not a few degrees worse! Is there
nothing but dulness in life? Is everything the same--one way or
another--and nothing to show for it all, when it is over, but
tediousness and discontent?"

Underwood looked at him keenly with his fiery eyes.

"So you've come to that already, have you?" he said. "I thought you were
too young and foolish."

"I am not so young as not to know that I am behaving like an idiot,"
Walter said. Perhaps he had a little hope of being contradicted and
brought back to his own esteem.

But instead of this, Captain Underwood only looked at him again and
laughed.

"I know," he said: "the conscience has its tremors, especially after an
evening at the rectory. You see how well respectability looks, how
comfortable it is."

"I do nothing of the sort," Walter cried indignantly. "I see how dull
you are, you people who scoff at respectability, and I begin to wonder
whether it is not better to be dull and thrive than to be dull and
perish. They seem much the same thing so far as enjoyment goes."

"You want excitement," said the other carelessly. "I allow there is not
much of that here."

"I want something," cried Walter. "Cards even are better than nothing. I
want to feel that I have blood in my veins."

"My dear boy, all that is easily explained. You want money. Money is the
thing that mounts the blood in the veins. With money you can have as
much excitement, as much movement as you like. Let people say what they
please, there is nothing else that does it," said the man of experience.
He took a choice cigar leisurely from his case as he spoke. "A bit of a
country town like this, what can you expect from it? There is no go in
them. They risk a shilling, and go away frightened if they lose. If they
don't go to church on Sunday they feel all the remorse of a villain in a
play. It's all petty here--everything's petty, both the vices and the
virtues. I don't wonder you find it slow. What I find it, I needn't
say."

"Why do you stop here, then?" said Walter, not unnaturally, with a
momentary stare of surprise. Then he resumed, being full of his own
subject. "I know I'm an ass," he said. "I loaf about here doing nothing
when I ought to be at work. I don't know why I do it; but neither do I
know how to get out of it. You, that's quite another thing. You have no
call to stay. I wonder you do: why do you? If I were as free as you, I
should be off--before another day."

"Come along then," said Underwood, good-humouredly. "I'll go if you'll
go."

At this Walter shook his head.

"I have no money you know. I ought to be in an office or doing
something. I can't go off to shoot here or fish there, like you."

"By and by--by and by. You have time enough to wait."

Walter gave him a look of surprise.

"There is nothing to wait for," he said. "Is that why you have said so
many things to me about seeing life? I have nothing. We've got no money
in the family. I may wait till doomsday, but it will do nothing for me."

"Don't be too sure of that," said Underwood. "Oh, you needn't devour me
with your eyes. I know nothing of your family affairs. I suppose of
course that by and by, in the course of nature----"

"You mean," said Walter, turning pale, "when my mother dies. No, I'm not
such a wretched cad as that: if I didn't know I should get next to
nothing then, I----" (His conscience nearly tripped this young man up,
running into his way so hurriedly that he caught his foot unawares.)
Then he stopped and grew red, staring at his companion. "Most of what
she has dies with her, if that's what you're thinking of. There is
nothing in that to build upon. And I'm glad of it," the young man cried.

"I beg your pardon, Methven," said the other. "But it needn't be that;
there are other ways of getting rich."

"I don't know any of them, unless by work: and how am I to work? It is
so easy to speak. What can I work at? and where am I to get it?--there
is the question. I hear enough on that subject--as if I were a tailor
or a shoemaker that could find something to do at any corner. There is
no reason in it," the young man said, so hotly, and with such a flush of
resentful obstinacy, that the fervour of his speech betrayed him. He was
like a man who had outrun himself, and paused, out of breath.

"You'll see; something will turn up," said Underwood, with a laugh.

"What can turn up?--nothing. Suppose I go to New Zealand and come back
at fifty with my fortune made--Fifty's just the age, isn't it, to begin
to enjoy yourself," cried Walter, scornfully; "when you have not a tooth
left, nor a faculty perfect?" He was so young that the half-century
appeared to him like the age of Methusaleh, and men who lived to that
period as having outlived all that is worth living for. His mentor
laughed a little uneasily, as if he had been touched by this chance
shot.

"It is not such a terrible age after all," he said. "A man can still
enjoy himself when he is fifty; but I grant you that at twenty-four it's
a long time to wait for your pleasure. However, let us hope something
will turn up before then. Supposing, for the sake of argument, you were
to come in to your fortune more speedily, I wonder what you would do
with it--eh? you are such a terrible fellow for excitement. The turf?"

"All that is folly," said Walter, getting up abruptly. "Nothing more,
thanks. I am coming in to no fortune. And you don't understand me a
bit," he said, turning at the door of the room, to look back upon the
scene where he had himself spent so many hours, made piquant by a sense
of that wrongdoing which supplies excitement when other motives fail.
The chairs standing about as their occupants had thrust them away from
the table, the empty glasses upon it, the disorder of the room, struck
him with a certain sense of disgust. It was a room intended by nature to
be orderly and sober, with heavy country-town furniture, and nothing
about it that could throw any grace on disarray. The master of the place
stood against the table swaying a somewhat heavy figure over it, and
gazing at the young man with his fiery eyes. Walter's rudeness did not
please him, any more than his abrupt withdrawal.

"Don't be too sure of that," he said, with an effort to retain his
good-humoured aspect. "If I don't understand you, I should like to know
who does? and when that fortune comes, you will remember what I say."

"Pshaw!" Walter cried, impatiently turning away. A nod of his head was
all the good-night he gave. He hurried down as he had hurried up, still
as little contented, as full of dissatisfaction as when he came. This
man who thought he understood him, who intended to influence him,
revolted the young man's uneasy sense of independence, as much as did
the bond of more lawful authority. Did Underwood, _too_, think him a
child not able to guide himself? It was very late by this time, and the
streets very silent. He walked quickly home through the wintry darkness
of November, with a mind as thoroughly out of tune as it is possible to
imagine. He had gone to Underwood's in the hot impulse of opposition,
with the hope of getting rid temporarily, at least, of the struggle
within him; but he had not got rid of it. The dull jokes of the
assembled company had only made the raging of the inward storm more
sensible, and the jaunty and presumptuous misconception with which his
host received his involuntary confidences afterwards, had aggravated
instead of soothing his mind. Indeed, Underwood's pretence at knowing
all about it, his guesses and attempts to sound his companion's mind,
and the blundering interpretation of it into which he stumbled, filled
Walter with double indignation and disgust. This man too he had thought
much of, and expected superior intelligence from--and all that he had to
say was an idiotic anticipation of some miraculous coming into a fortune
which Walter was aware was as likely to happen to the beggar on the
streets as to himself. He had been angry with nature and his mother when
he left her door; he was angry with everybody when he returned to it,
though his chief anger of all, and the root of all the others, was that
anger with himself, which burnt within his veins, and which is the
hardest of all others to quench out.




CHAPTER III.


Walter was very late next morning as he had been very late at night. The
ladies had breakfasted long before, and there was a look of reproach in
the very table-cloth left there so much after the usual time, and
scrupulously cleared of everything that the others had used, and
arranged at one end, with the dish kept hot for him, and the small
teapot just big enough for one, which was a sermon in itself. His mother
was seated by the fire with her weekly books, which she was adding up.
She said scarcely anything to him, except the morning greeting, filling
out his tea with a gravity which was all the more crushing that there
was nothing in it to object to, nothing to resent. Adding up accounts of
itself is not cheerful work; but naturally the young man resented this
seriousness all the more because he had no right to do so. It was
intolerable, he felt, to sit and eat in presence of that silent figure
partly turned away from him, jotting down the different amounts on a bit
of paper, and absorbed in that occupation as if unconscious of his
presence. Even scolding was better than this; Walter was perfectly
conscious of all it was in her power to say. He knew by heart her
remonstrances and appeals. But he disliked the silence more than all. He
longed to take her by the shoulders, and cry, "What is it? What have you
got to say to me? What do you mean by sitting there like a stone figure,
and _meaning_ it all the same!" He did not do this, knowing it would be
foolish, and gave his constant antagonist a certain advantage; but he
longed to get rid of some of his own exasperation by such an act. It was
with a kind of force over himself that he ate his breakfast, going
through all the forms, prolonging it to the utmost of his power, helping
himself with deliberate solemnity in defiance of the spectator, who
seemed so absorbed in her own occupation, but was, he felt sure,
watching his every movement. It was not, however, until he had come to
an end of his prolonged meal and of his newspaper, that his mother
spoke.

"Do you think," she said, "that it would be possible for you to write
that letter to Mr. Milnathort of which I have spoken so often, to-day?"

"Oh, quite possible," said Walter, carelessly.

"Will you do it, then? It seems to me very important to your interests.
Will you really do it, and do it to-day?"

"I'll see about it," Walter said.

"I don't ask you to see about it. It is nothing very difficult. I ask
you to do it at once--to-day."

He gazed at her for a moment with an angry obstinacy.

"I see no particular occasion for all this haste. It has stood over a
good many days. Why should you insist so upon it now?"

"Every day that it has been put off has been a mistake. It should have
been done at once," Mrs. Methven said.

"I'll see about it," he said carelessly; and he went out of the room
with a sense of having exasperated her as usual, which was almost
pleasant.

At the bottom of his heart he meant to do what his mother had asked of
him: but he would not betray his good intentions. He preferred to look
hostile even when he was in the mind to be obedient. He went away to the
little sitting-room which was appropriated to him, where his pipes
adorned the mantelpiece, and sat down to consider the situation. To
write a letter was not a great thing to do, and he fully meant to do it;
but after he had mused a little angrily upon the want of perception
which made his mother adopt that cold and hectoring tone, when if she
had asked him gently he would have done it in a minute, he put forth his
hand and drew a book towards him. It was not either a new or an
entertaining book, but it secured his idle attention until he suddenly
remembered that it was time to go out. The letter was not written, but
what did that matter? The post did not go out till the afternoon, and
there was plenty of time between that time and this to write
half-a-dozen letters. It would do very well, he thought, when he came in
for lunch. So he threw down the book and got his hat and went out.

Mrs. Methven, who was on the watch, hearing his every movement, came
into his room after he was gone, and looked round with eager eyes to see
if the letter was written, if there was any trace of it. Perhaps he had
taken it out with him to post it, she thought: and though it was
injurious to her that she should not know something more about a piece
of business in which he was not the sole person concerned, yet it gave
her a sort of relief to think that so much at least he had done. She
went back to her books with an easier mind. She was far from being a
rich woman, but her son had known none of her little difficulties, her
efforts to make ends meet. She had thought it wrong to trouble his
childhood with such confidences, and he had grown up thinking nothing on
the subject, without any particular knowledge of, or interest in, her
affairs, taking everything for granted. It was her own fault, she said
to herself, and so it was to some extent. She would sometimes think that
if she had it to do over again she would change all that. How often do
we think this, and with what bitter regret, in respect to the children
whom people speak of as wax in our hands, till we suddenly wake up and
find them iron! She had kept her difficulties out of Walter's way, and
instead of being grateful to her for so doing, he was simply
indifferent, neither inquiring nor caring to know. Her own doing! It was
easier to herself, yet bitter beyond telling, to acknowledge it to be
so. Just at this time, when Christmas was approaching, the ends took a
great deal of tugging and coaxing to bring them together. A few of
Walter's bills had come in unexpectedly, putting her poor balance
altogether wrong. Miss Merivale contributed a little, but only a little,
to the housekeeping; for Mrs. Methven was both proud and liberal, and
understood giving better than receiving. She went back to the
dining-room, where all her books lay upon the table, near the fire. Her
reckoning had advanced much since she had begun it, with Walter sitting
at breakfast. Her faculties had been all absorbed in him and what he was
doing. Now she addressed herself to her accounts with a strenuous
effort. It is hard work to balance a small sum of money against a large
number of bills, to settle how to divide it so as that everybody shall
have something, and the mouths of hungry creditors be stopped. Perhaps
we might say that this was one of the fine arts--so many pounds here, so
many there, keeping credit afloat, and the wolf of debt from the door.
Mrs. Methven was skilled in it. She went to this work, feeling all its
difficulty and burden: yet, with a little relief, not because she saw
any way out of her difficulties, but because Walter had written that
letter. It was always something done, she thought, in her simplicity,
and something might come of it, some way in which he could get the means
of exercising his faculties, perhaps of distinguishing himself even
yet.

Walter for his part strolled away through the little town in his usual
easy way. It was a fine, bright, winterly morning, not cold, yet cold
enough to make brisk walking pleasant, and stir the blood in young
veins. There was no football going on, nor any special amusement. He
could not afford to hunt, and the only active winter exercise which he
could attain was limited to this game--of which there was a good deal at
Sloebury--and skating, when it pleased Providence to send ice, which was
too seldom. He looked in upon one or two of his cronies, and played a
game of billiards, and hung about the High Street to see what was going
on. There was nothing particular going on, but the air was fresh, and
the sun shining, and a little pleasant movement about, much more
agreeable at least than sitting in a stuffy little room writing a
troublesome letter which he felt sure would not do the least good.
Finally, he met Captain Underwood, who regarded him with a look which
Walter would have called anxious had he been able to imagine any
possible reason why Underwood should entertain any anxiety on his
account.

"Well! any news?" the captain cried.

"News! What news should there be in this dead-alive place?" Walter said.

The other looked at him keenly as if to see whether he was quite
sincere, and then said, "Come and have some lunch."

He was free of all the best resorts in Sloebury, this mysterious
man. He belonged to the club, he was greatly at his ease in the
hotel--everything was open to him. Walter, who had but little money
of his own, and could not quite cut the figure he wished, was not
displeased to be thus exhibited as the captain's foremost ally.

"I thought you might have come into that fortune, you are looking so
spruce," the captain said, and laughed. But though he laughed he kept an
eye on the young man as if the pleasantry meant more than appeared.
Walter felt a momentary irritation with this, which seemed to him a very
bad joke; but he went with the captain all the same, not without a
recollection of the table at home, at which, after waiting three
quarters of an hour or so, and watching at the window for his coming,
the ladies would at last sit down. But he was not a child to be forced
to attendance at every meal, he said to himself. The captain's
attentions to him were great, and it was a very nice little meal that
they had together.

"I expect you to do great things for me when you come into your fortune.
You had better engage me at once as your guide, philosopher, and
friend," he said, with a laugh. "Of course you will quit Sloebury, and
make yourself free of all this bondage."

"Oh, of course," said Walter, humouring the joke, though it was so bad a
one in every way.

He could not quarrel with his host at his own table, and perhaps after
all it was more dignified to take it with good humour.

"You must not go in for mere expense," the captain said; "you must make
it pay. I can put you up to a thing or two. You must not go into the
world like a pigeon to be plucked. It would effect my personal honour if
a pupil of mine--for I consider you as a pupil of mine, Methven, I think
I have imparted to you a thing or two. You are not quite the simpleton
you used to be, do you think you are?"

Walter received this with great gravity, though he tried to look as if
he were not offended.

"Was I a simpleton?" he said. "I suppose in one's own case one never
sees."

"Were you a simpleton!" said the other, with a laugh, and then he
stopped himself, always keenly watching the young man's face, and
perceiving that he was going too far. "But I flatter myself you could
hold your own at whist with any man now," the captain said.

This pleased the young man; his gravity unbended a little; there was a
visible relaxation of the corners of his mouth. To be praised is always
agreeable. Moral applause, indeed, may be taken with composure, but who
could hear himself applauded for his whist-playing without an
exhilaration of the heart? He said, with satisfaction, "I always was
pretty good at games," at which his instructor laughed again, almost too
much for perfect good breeding.

"I like to have young fellows like you to deal with," he said, "fellows
with a little spirit, that are born for better things. Your
country-town young man is as fretful and frightened when he loses a few
shillings as if it were thousands. But that's one of the reasons why I
feel you're born to luck, my boy. I know a man of liberal breeding
whenever I see him, he is not frightened about a nothing. That's one of
the things I like in you, Methven. You deserve a fortune, and you
deserve to have me for your guide, philosopher, and friend."

All this was said by way of joke; but it was strange to see the steady
watch which he kept on the young man's face. One would have said a
person of importance whom Underwood meant to try his strength with, but
guardedly, without going too far, and even on whom he was somehow
dependent, anxious to make a good impression. Walter, who knew his own
favour to be absolutely without importance, and that Underwood above
all, his host and frequent entertainer, could be under no possible
delusion on the subject, was puzzled, yet flattered, feeling that only
some excellence on his part, undiscovered by any of his other
acquaintances, could account for this. So experienced a person could
have "no motive" in thus paying court to a penniless and prospectless
youth. Walter was perplexed, but he was gratified too. He had not seen
many of the captain's kind; nobody who knew so many people or who was so
much at his ease with the world. Admiration of this vast acquaintance,
and of the familiarity with which the captain treated things and people
of which others spoke with bated breath, had varied in his mind with a
fluctuating sense that Underwood was not exactly so elevated a person as
he professed to be, and even that there were occasional vulgarities in
this man of the world. Walter felt these, but in his ignorance
represented to himself that perhaps they were right enough, and only
seemed vulgar to him who knew no better. And to-day there is no doubt he
was somewhat intoxicated by this flattery. It must be disinterested, for
what could he do for anybody? He confided to the captain more than he
had ever done before of his own position. He described how he was being
urged to write to old Milnathort. "He is an old lawyer in Scotland--what
they call a writer--and it is supposed he might be induced to take me
into his office, for the sake of old associations. I don't know what the
associations are, but the position does not smile upon me," Walter said.

"Your family then is a Scotch family?" said the captain with a nod of
approval. "I thought as much."

"I don't know that I've got a family," said Walter.

"On the contrary, Methven is a very good name. There are half-a-dozen
baronets at least, and a peer--you must have heard of him, Lord
Erradeen."

"Oh yes, I've heard of him," Walter said with a conscious look.

If he had been more in the world he would have said "he is a cousin of
mine," but he was aware that the strain of kindred was very far off, and
he was at once too shy and too proud to claim it. His companion waited
apparently for the disclosure, then finding it did not come opened the
way.

"If he's a relation of yours, it's to him you ought to write; very
likely he would do something for you. They are a curious family. I've
had occasion to know something about them."

"I think you know everybody, Underwood."

"Well, I have knocked about the world a great deal; in that way one
comes across a great many people. I saw a good deal of the present lord
at one time. He was a very queer man--they are all queer. If you are one
of them you'll have to bear your share in it. There is a mysterious
house they have--You would think I was an idiot if I told you half the
stories I have heard----"

"About the Erradeens?"

"About everybody," said the captain evasively. "There is scarcely a
family, that, if you go right into it, has not something curious about
them. We all have; but those that last and continue keep it on record. I
could tell you the wildest tales about So-and-so and So-and-so, very
ordinary people to look at, but with stories that would make your hair
stand on end."

"We have nothing to do with things of that sort. My people have always
been straightforward and above-board."

"For as much as you know, perhaps; but go back three or four generations
and how can you tell? We have all of us ancestors that perhaps were not
much to brag of."

Walter caught Underwood's eye as he said this, and perhaps there was a
twinkle in it, for he laughed.

"It is something," he said, "to have ancestors at all."

"If they were the greatest blackguards in the world," the captain said
with a responsive laugh, "that's what I think. You don't want any more
of my revelations? Well, never mind, probably I shall have you coming to
me some of these days quite humbly to beg for more information. You are
not cut out for an attorney's office. It is very virtuous, of course, to
give yourself up to work and turn your back upon life."

"Virtue be hanged," said Walter, with some excitement, "it is not
virtue, but necessity, which I take to be the very opposite. I know I'm
wasting my time, but I mean to turn over a new leaf. And as the first
evidence of that, as soon as I go home I shall write to old Milnathort."

"Not to-day," said Underwood, looking at his watch; "the post has gone;
twenty-four hours more to think about it will do you no harm."

Walter started to his feet, and it was with a real pang that he saw how
the opportunity had escaped him, and his intention in spite of himself
been balked; a flush of shame came over his face. He felt that, if never
before, here was a genuine occasion for blame. To be sure, the same
thing had happened often enough before, but he had never perhaps so
fully intended to do what was required of him. He sat down again with a
muttered curse at himself and his own folly. There was nothing to be
said for him. He had meant to turn over a new leaf, and yet this day was
just like the last. The thought made his heart sick for the moment. But
what was the use of making a fuss and betraying himself to a stranger?
He sat down again, with a self-disgust which made him glad to escape
from his own company. Underwood's talk might be shallow enough, perhaps
his pretence at knowledge was not very well founded, but he was safer
company than conscience, and that burning and miserable sense of moral
impotence which is almost worse than the more tragic stings of
conscience. To find out that your resolution is worth nothing, after you
have put yourself to the trouble of making it, and that habit is more
strong than any motive, is not a pleasant thing to think of. Better let
the captain talk about Lord Erradeen, or any other lord in the peerage.
Underwood, being encouraged with a few questions, talked very largely on
this subject. He gave the young man many pieces of information, which
indeed he could have got in Debrett if he had been anxious on the
subject; and as the afternoon wore on they strolled out again for
another promenade up and down the more populous parts of Sloebury, and
there fell in with other idlers like themselves; and when the twilight
yielded to the more cheerful light of the lamps, betook themselves to
whist, which was sometimes played in the captain's rooms at that immoral
hour. Sloebury, even the most advanced portion of it, had been
horrified at the thought of whist before dinner when the captain first
suggested it, but that innocent alarm had long since melted away. There
was nothing dangerous about it, no stakes which any one could be hurt by
losing. When Walter, warned by the breaking up of the party that it was
the hour for dinner, took his way home also, he was the winner of a
sixpence or two, and no more: there had been nothing wrong in the play.
But when he turned the corner of Underwood's street and found himself
with the wind in his face on his way home, the revulsion of feeling from
something like gaiety to a rush of disagreeable anticipations, a crowd
of uncomfortable thoughts, was pitiful. In spite of all our boastings of
home and home influence, how many experience this change the moment they
turn their face in the direction of that centre where it is conventional
to suppose all comfort and shelter is! There is a chill, an abandonment
of pleasant sensations, a preparation for those that are not pleasant.
Walter foresaw what he would find there with an impatience and
resentment which were almost intolerable. Behind the curtain, between
the laths of the Venetian blind, his mother would be secretly on the
outlook watching for his return; perhaps even she had stolen quietly to
the door, and, sheltered in the darkness of the porch, was looking out;
or, if not that, the maid who opened the door would look reproachfully
at him, and ask if he was going to dress, or if she might serve the
dinner at once: it must have been waiting already nearly half an hour.
He went on very quickly, but his thoughts lingered and struggled with
the strong disinclination that possessed him. How much he would have
given not to go home at all! how little pleasure he expected when he got
there! His mother most likely would be silent, pale with anger, saying
little, while Cousin Sophia would get up a little conversation. She
would talk lightly about anything that might have been happening, and
Walter would perhaps exert himself to give Sophia back her own, and show
his mother that he cared nothing about her displeasure. And then when
dinner was over, he would hurry out again, glad to be released. Home:
this was what it had come to be: and nothing could mend it so far as
either mother or son could see. Oh, terrible incompatibility,
unapproachableness of one soul to another! To think that they should be
so near, yet so far away. Even in the case of husband and wife the
severance is scarcely so terrible; for they have come towards each other
out of different spheres, and if they do not amalgamate, there are many
secondary causes that may be blamed, differences of nature and training
and thought. But a mother with her child, whom she has brought up, whose
first opinions she has implanted, who ought naturally to be influenced
by her ways of thinking, and even by prejudices and superstitions in
favour of her way! It was not, however, this view of the question which
moved the young man. It was the fact of his own bondage, the compulsion
he was under to return to dinner, to give some partial obedience to the
rules of the house, and to confess that he had not written that letter
to Mr. Milnathort.

When he came in sight of the house, however, he became aware insensibly,
he could scarcely tell how, of some change in its aspect: what was it?
It was lighted up in the most unusual way. The window of the spare room
was shining not only with candlelight, but with firelight, his own room
was lighted up; the door was standing open, throwing out a warm flood of
light into the street, and in the centre of this light stood Mrs.
Methven with her white shawl over her head, not at all concealing
herself, gazing anxiously in the direction from which he was coming.

"I think I will send for him," he heard her say; "he has, very likely,
stepped into Captain Underwood's, and he is apt to meet friends there
who will not let him go."

Her voice was soft--there was no blame in it, though she was anxious.
She was speaking to some one behind her, a figure in a great coat.
Walter was in the shadow and invisible. He paused in his surprise to
listen.

"I must get away by the last train," he heard the voice of the muffled
figure say somewhat pettishly.

"Oh, there is plenty of time for that," cried his mother; and then she
gave a little cry of pleasure, and said, "And, at a good moment, here he
is!"

He came in somewhat dazzled, and much astonished, into the strong light
in the open doorway. Mrs. Methven's countenance was all radiant and
glowing with pleasure. She held out her hand to him eagerly.

"We have been looking for you," she cried; "I have had a great surprise.
Walter, this is Mr. Milnathort."

Puzzled, startled, and yet somewhat disappointed, Walter paused in the
hall, and looked at a tall old man with a face full of crotchets and
intelligence, who stood with two great coats unbuttoned, and a comforter
half unwound from his throat, under the lamp. His features were high and
thin, his eyes invisible under their deep sockets.

"Now, you will surely take off your coat, and consent to go up-stairs,
and make yourself comfortable," said Mrs. Methven, with a thrill of
excitement in her voice. "This is Walter. He has heard of you all his
life. Without any reference to the nature of your communication, he must
be glad, indeed, to make your acquaintance--"

She gave Walter a look of appeal as she spoke. He was so much surprised
that it was with difficulty he found self-possession to murmur a few
words of civility. A feeling that Mr. Milnathort must have come to look
after that letter which had never been written came in with the most
wonderfully confusing, half ludicrous effect into his mind, like one of
the inadequate motives and ineffable conclusions of a dream. Mr.
Milnathort made a stiff little bow in reply.

"I will remain till the last train. In the mean time the young gentleman
had better be informed, Mrs. Methven."

She put out her hands again. "A moment--give us a moment first."

The old lawyer stood still and looked from the mother to the son.
Perhaps to his keen eyes it was revealed that it would be well she
should have the advantage of any pleasant revelation.

"I will," he said, "madam, avail myself of your kind offer to go
up-stairs and unroll myself out of these trappings of a long journey;
and in the mean time you will, perhaps, like to tell him the news
yourself: he will like it all the better if he hears it from his
mother."

Mrs. Methven bowed her head, having, apparently, no words at her
command: and stood looking after him till he disappeared on the stairs,
following the maid, who had been waiting with a candle lighted in her
hand. When he was gone, she seized Walter hurriedly by the arm, and drew
him towards the little room, the nearest, which was his ordinary
sitting-room. Her hand grasped him with unnecessary force in her
excitement. The room was dark--he could not see her face, the only light
in it being the reflection of the lamp outside.

"Oh, Walter!" she cried; "oh, my boy! I don't know how to tell you the
news. This useless life is all over for you, and another--oh, how
different--another--God grant it happy and great, oh, God grant it!
blessed and noble!--"

Her voice choked with excitement and fast-coming tears. She drew him
towards her into her arms.

"It will take you from me--but what of that, if it makes you happy and
good? I have been no guide to you, but God will be your guide: His
leadings were all dark to me, but now I see--"

"Mother," he cried, with a strange impulse he could not understand,
putting his arm round her, "I did not write that letter: I have done
nothing I promised or meant to do. I am sick to the heart to think what
a fool and a cad I am--for the love of God tell me what it is!"




CHAPTER IV.


All Sloebury was aware next morning that something of the most
extraordinary character had happened to young Walter Methven. The rumour
even reached the club on the same evening. First the report was that he
had got a valuable appointment, at which the gentlemen shook their
heads; next that he had come into a fortune: they laughed with one
accord at this. Then, as upon a sudden gale of wind, there blew into the
smoking-room, then full of tobacco, newspapers, and men, a whisper which
made everybody turn pale. This was one reason, if not the chief, why
that evening was one of the shortest ever known at the club, which did
not indeed generally keep very late hours, but still was occupied by its
_habitués_ till ten or eleven o'clock, when the serious members would go
away, leaving only the boys, who never could have enough of it. But on
that evening even the young men cleared off about ten or so. They wanted
to know what it meant. Some of them went round to Captain Underwood's
where Walter was so often to be found, with a confidence that at least
Underwood would know; the more respectable members of society went home
to their families to spread the news, and half-a-dozen mothers at least
went to bed that night with a disagreeable recollection that they had
individually and deliberately "broken off" an incipient flirtation or
more, in which Walter had been one of the parties concerned. But the
hopeful ones said to themselves, "Lizzie has but to hold up her little
finger to bring him back." This was before the whole was known. The
young men who had hurried to Captain Underwood's were received by that
gentleman with an air of importance and of knowing more than he would
tell, which impressed their imaginations deeply. He allowed that he had
always known that there was a great deal of property, and perhaps a
title concerned, but declared that he was not at liberty to say any
more. Thus the minds of all were prepared for a great revelation; and it
is safe to say that from one end of Sloebury to the other Walter's name
was in everybody's mouth. It had been always believed that the Methvens
were people of good connections, and of later years it had been
whispered by the benevolent as a reason for Walter's inaction that he
had grand relations, who at the proper moment would certainly interfere
and set everything right for him. Others, however, were strenuous in
their denial and ridicule of this, asking, was his mother a woman to
conceal any advantages she had?--for they did not understand the kind of
pride in which Mrs. Methven was so strong. And then it was clear that
not only did the grand relations do nothing for Walter, but he did not
even have an invitation from them, and went from home only when his
mother went to the sea-side. Thus there was great doubt and wonder, and
in some quarters an inclination to treat the rumour as a canard, and to
postpone belief. At the same time everybody believed it, more or less,
at the bottom of their hearts, feeling that a thing so impossible must
be true.

But when it burst fully upon the world next morning along with the pale
November daylight, but much more startling, that Walter Methven had
succeeded as the next heir to his distant cousin, who was the head of
the family, and was now Lord Erradeen, a great potentate, with castles
in the Highlands and fat lands further south, and moors and deer forests
and everything that the heart of man could think of, the town was swept
not only by a thrill of wonder, but of emotion. Nobody was indifferent
to this extraordinary romance. Some, when they had got over the first
bewilderment, received it with delightful anticipations, as if the good
fortune which had befallen Walter was in some respects good fortune also
for themselves; whereas many others were almost angry at this sudden
elevation over their heads of one who certainly did not deserve any
better, if indeed half so well as they did. But nobody was indifferent.
It was the greatest excitement that had visited Sloebury for years--even
it might be said for generations. Lord Erradeen! it took away
everybody's breath.

Among the circle of Walter's more intimate acquaintance, the impression
made was still deeper, as may be supposed. The commotion in the mind of
the rector, who indeed was old enough to have taken it with more
placidity, was such that he hurried in from morning service without
taking off his cassock. He was a good Churchman, but not so far gone as
to walk about the world in that ecclesiastical garment.

"Can you imagine what has happened?" he said, bursting in upon Mrs.
Wynn, who was delicate and did not go to church in the winter mornings.
"Young Walter Methven, that you all made such a talk about----"

This was unfair, because she had never made any talk--being a woman who
did not talk save most sparingly. She was tempted for a moment to
forestall him by telling him she already knew, but her heart failed her,
and she only shook her head a little in protest against this calumny,
and waited smilingly for what he had to say. She could not take away
from him the pleasure of telling this wonderful piece of news.

"Why it was only the night before last he was here--most of us rather
disapproving of him, poor boy," said the rector. "Well, Lydia, that
young fellow that was a good-for-nothing, you know--doing nothing, never
exerting himself: well, my dear! the most extraordinary thing has
happened--the most wonderful piece of good fortune----"

"Don't keep me on tenterhooks, Julius; I have heard some buzzing of talk
already."

"I should think you had! the town is full of it; they tell me that
everybody you meet on the streets--Lydia!" said the rector with
solemnity, drawing close to her to make his announcement more imposing,
"that boy is no longer simple Mr. Walter Methven. He is Lord
Erradeen----"

"Lord what?" cried the old lady. It was part of her character to be a
little deaf, or rather hard of hearing, which is the prettier way of
stating the fact. It was supposed by some that this was one of the
reasons why, when any one was blamed, she always shook her head.

"Lord Er-ra-deen; but bless me, it is not the name that is so wonderful,
it is the fact. Lord Erradeen--a great personage--a man of importance.
You don't show any surprise, Lydia! and yet it is the most astonishing
incident without comparison that has happened in the parish these
hundred years."

"I wonder what his mother is thinking," Mrs. Wynn said.

"If her head is turned nobody could be surprised. Of course, like every
other mother, she thinks her son worthy of every exaltation."

"I wish she was of that sort," the old lady said.

"Every woman is of that sort," said the rector with hasty dogmatism;
"and, in one way, I am rather sorry, for it will make her feel she was
perfectly right in encouraging him, and that would be such a terrible
example for others. The young men will all take to idling----"

"But it is not the idling, but the fact that there is a peerage in the
family----"

"You can't expect," cried the rector, who was not lucid, "that boys or
women either will reason back so far as that. It will be a bad example:
and, in the mean time, it is a most astonishing fact. But you don't seem
in the least excited. I thought you would have jumped out of your
chair--out of the body almost."

"I am too rheumatic for that," said Mrs. Wynn with a smile: then, "I
wonder if she will come and tell me," the old lady said.

"I should think she does not know whether she is on her head or her
heels," cried the rector; "I don't feel very sure myself. And Walter!
What a change, to be sure, for that boy! I hope he will make a good use
of it. I hope he will not dart off with Underwood and such fellows and
make a fool of himself. Mind, I don't mean that I think so badly of
Underwood," he added after a moment, for this was a subject on which,
being mollified as previously mentioned, the rector took the male side
of the question. Mrs. Wynn received the protest in perfect silence, not
even shaking her head.

"But if he took a fancy for horses or that sort of thing," Mr. Wynn
added with a moment's hesitation; then he brightened up again--"of
course it is better that he should know somebody who has a little
experience in any case; and you will perceive, my dear, there is a
great difference between a penniless youth like Walter Methven getting
such notions in his head which lead only to ruin, and young Lord
Erradeen dabbling a little in amusements which, after all, have no harm
in them if not carried too far, and are natural in his rank--but you
women are always prejudiced on such a point."

"I did not say anything, my dear," the old lady said.

"Oh, no, you don't say anything," cried the rector fretfully, "but I see
it in every line of your shawl and every frill of your cap. You are just
stiff with prejudice so far as Underwood is concerned, who really is not
at all a bad fellow when you come to know him, and is always respectful
to religion, and shows a right feeling--but one might as well try to fly
as to convince you when you have taken a prejudice."

Mrs. Wynn made no protest against this. She said only, "It is a great
ordeal for a boy to pass through. I wonder if his mother----" And here
she paused, not having yet, perhaps, formulated into words the thoughts
that arose in her heart.

"It is to be hoped that she will let him alone," the rector said; "she
has indulged him in everything hitherto; but just now, when he is far
better left to himself, no doubt she will be wanting to interfere."

"Do you think she has indulged him in everything?" said the old lady;
but she did not think it necessary to accuse her husband of prejudice.
Perhaps he understood Captain Underwood as much better as she
understood Mrs. Methven; so she said nothing more. She was the only
individual in Sloebury who had any notion of the struggle in which
Walter's mother had wrecked so much of her own peace.

"There cannot be any two opinions on that subject," said the rector.
"Poor lad! You will excuse me, my dear, but I am always sorry for a boy
left to a woman's training. He is either a mere milksop or a
ne'er-do-well. Walter is not a milksop, and here has Providence stepped
in, in the most wonderful way, to save him from being the other: but
that is no virtue of hers. You will stand up, of course, for your own
side."

The old lady smiled and shook her head. "I think every child is the
better for having both its parents, Julius, if that is what you mean."

This was not exactly what he meant, but it took the wind out of the
rector's sails. "Yes, it is an ordeal for him," he said, "but, I am
sure, if my advice can do him any good, it is at his service; and,
though I have been out of the way of many things for some time, yet I
dare say the world is very much what it was, and I used to know it well
enough."

"He will ask for nobody's advice," said Mrs. Wynn.

"Which makes it all the more desirable he should have it," cried the
rector; and then he said, "Bless me! I have got my cassock on still.
Tell John to take it down to the vestry--though, by the way, there is a
button off, and you might as well have it put on for me, as it is
here."

Mrs. Wynn executed the necessary repair of the cassock with her own
hands. Though she was rheumatic, and did not care to leave her chair
oftener than was necessary, she had still the use of her hands, and she
had a respect for all the accessories of the clerical profession. She
was sitting examining the garment to see if any other feeblenesses were
apparent, in which a stitch in time might save after labours, when, with
a little eager tap at the door, another visitor came in. This was a
young lady of three or four and twenty, with a good deal of the beauty
which consists in fresh complexion and pleasant colour. Her hair was
light brown, warm in tone; her eyes were brown and sparkling; her cheeks
and lips bloomed with health. She had a pretty figure, full of life and
energy--everything, in short, that is necessary to make up a pretty
girl, without any real loveliness or deeper grace. She came in quickly,
brimming over, as was evident, with something which burst forth as soon
as she had given the old lady the hasty conventional kiss of greeting,
and which, as a matter of course, turned out to be the news of which
Sloebury was full.

"Did you ever hear anything so wonderful?" she said. "Walter Methven,
that nobody thought anything of--and now he is turned into a live lord!
a real peer of parliament! they say. I thought mamma would have fainted
when she heard it."

"Why should your mamma faint when she heard of it, July? It is very
pleasant news."

"Oh, Aunt Lydia! don't you know why? I am so angry: I feel as if I
should never speak to her again. Don't you remember? And I always
thought you had some hand in it. Oh, you sit there and look so innocent,
but that is because you are so deep."

"Am I deep?" the old lady asked with a smile.

"You are the deepest person I ever knew: you see through us all, and you
just throw in a word; and then, when people act upon it, you look so
surprised. I heard you myself remark to mamma how often Walter Methven
was at our house."

"Yes, I think I did remark it," Mrs. Wynn said.

"And what was the harm? He liked to come, and he liked me; and I hope
you don't think I am the sort of person to forget myself and think too
much about a man."

"I thought you were letting him be seen with you too often, July, that
is true."

"You thought it might keep others off that were more eligible? Well,
that is what I supposed you meant, for I never like to take a bad view.
But, you see, there was somebody that was eligible; and here has he
turned, all at once, into the very best match within a hundred miles. If
mamma had only let things alone, what prospects might be opening upon me
now!"

"Half-a-dozen girls, I am afraid, may say just the same," said Mrs.
Wynn.

"Well, what does that matter? He had nothing else to do. When a young
man has nothing to do he must be making up to somebody. I don't blame
him a bit; that is what makes us girls always ready for a flirtation.
Time hangs so heavy on our hands. And only think, Aunt Lydia, if things
had been allowed to go on (and I could always have thrown him off if
anything better turned up), only think what might have happened to me
now. I might be working a coronet in all my new handkerchiefs," cried
the girl: "only imagine! oh, oh, oh!"

And she pretended to cry; but there was a sparkle of nervous energy all
the same in her eyes, as if she were eager for the chase, and scarcely
able to restrain her impatience. Mrs. Wynn shook her head at her visitor
with a smile.

"You are not so worldly as you give yourself out to be," she said.

"Oh, that just shows how little you know. I am as worldly as ever woman
was. I think of nothing but how to establish myself, and have plenty of
money. We want it so! Oh, I know you are very good to us--both my uncle
and you; but mamma is extravagant, and I am extravagant, and naturally
all that anybody thinks of is to have what is necessary and decent for
us. We have to put up with it, but I hate what is necessary and decent.
I should like to go in satin and lace to-day even if I knew I should be
in rags to-morrow; and to think if you had not interfered that I might
have blazed in diamonds, and gone to court, and done everything I want
to do! I could strangle you, Aunt Lydia, and mamma too!" Upon which Miss
July (or Julée, which was how her name was pronounced) gave Mrs. Wynn a
sudden kiss and took the cassock out of her hands. "If it wants any
mending I will do it," she said; "it will just give me a little
consolation for the moment. And you will have time to think and answer
this question: Is it too late now?"

"July, dear, it hurts me to hear you talk so--you are not so wild as you
take credit for being."

"I am not wild at all, Aunt Lydia," said the girl, appropriating Mrs.
Wynn's implements, putting on her thimble, threading her needle, and
discovering at one glance the little rent in the cassock which the old
lady had been searching for in vain, "except with indignation to think
what I have lost--if I have lost it. It is all very well to speak, but
what is a poor girl to do? Yes, I know, to make just enough to live on
by teaching, or something of that sort; but that is not what I want. I
want to be well off. I am so extravagant, and so is mamma. We keep
ourselves down, we don't spend money; but we hate it so! I would go
through a great many disagreeables if I could only have enough to
spend."

"And is Walter one of the disagreeables you would go through?"

"Well, no; I could put up with him very well. He is not at all
unpleasant. I don't want him, but I could do with him. Do you really
think it is too late? Don't you think mamma might call upon Mrs. Methven
and say how delighted we are; and just say to him, you know, in a
playful way (mamma could manage that very well), 'We cannot hope to see
you now in our little house, Lord Erradeen!' and then of course he would
be piqued (for he's very generous), and say, 'Why?' And mamma would say,
'Oh, we are such poor little people, and you are now a great man.' Upon
which, as sure as fate, he would be at the Cottage the same evening. And
then!" July threw back her head, and expanded her brown eyes with a
conscious power and sense of capability, as who should say--Then it
would be in my own hands.--"Don't you think that's very good for a
plan?" she added, subsiding quickly to the work, which she executed as
one to the manner born.

"I don't think anything of it as a plan--and neither do you; and your
mother would not do it, July," the old lady said.

"Ah," said July, throwing back her head, "there you have hit the blot,
Aunt Lydia. Mamma wouldn't do it! She could, you know. When she likes
she is the completest humbug!--but not always. And she has so many
notions about propriety, and what is womanly, and so forth--just like
you. Poor women have no business with such luxuries. I tell her we must
be of our time, and all that sort of thing; but she won't see it. No, I
am afraid that is just the difficulty. It all depends on mamma--and
mamma won't. Well, it is a little satisfaction to have had it all out
with you. If you had not interfered, you two, and stopped the poor boy
coming----"

At this juncture John threw open the door, and with a voice which he
reserved for the great county ladies, announced "Mrs. Methven." John had
heard the great news too.

"--Stopped the poor boy coming," July said. The words were but half out
of her mouth when John opened the door, and it was next to impossible
that the new visitor had not heard them. A burning blush covered the
girl's face. She sprang to her feet with the cassock in her arms, and
gazed at the new comer. Mrs. Methven for the first moment did not notice
this third person. She came in with the content and self-absorption of
one who has a great wonder to tell. The little world of Sloebury and all
its incidents were as nothing to her. She went up to old Mrs. Wynn with
a noiseless swiftness.

"I have come to tell you great news," she said.

"Let me look at you," said the old lady. "I have heard, and I scarcely
could believe it. Then it is all true?"

"I am sorry I was not the first to tell you. I think such a thing must
get into the air. Nobody went out from my house last night, and yet
everybody knows. I saw even the people in the street looking at me as I
came along. Mrs. Wynn, you always stood up for him; I never said
anything, but I know you did. I came first to you. Yes, it is all true."

The old lady had known it now for several hours, and had been gently
excited, no more. Now her eyes filled with tears, she could not have
told why.

"Dear boy! I hope God will bless him, and make him worthy and great,"
she said, clasping her old hands together. "He has always been a
favourite with me."

"He is a favourite with everybody," said July. No one had noticed her
presence, and she was not one that could remain unseen. "Everybody is
glad; there is not one that doesn't wish him well."

Did she intend to strike that _coup_ for herself which her mother was
not to be trusted to make? Mrs. Wynn thought so with a great tremor, and
interrupted her in a tone that for her was hurried and anxious.

"July speaks nothing but the truth, Mrs. Methven; there is nobody that
does not like Walter; but I suppose I ought now to drop these
familiarities and call him Lord Erradeen?"

"He will never wish his old friends to do that," said Mrs. Methven. She
already smiled with a gracious glance and gesture: and the feeling that
these old friends were almost too much privileged in being so near to
him, and admitted to such signs of friendship, came into her mind; but
she did not care to have July share her expansion. "Miss Herbert," she
said, with a little bow, "is very good to speak so kindly. But everybody
is kind. I did not know my boy was so popular. Sunshine," she added,
with a smile, "brings out all the flowers."

She had not sat down, and she evidently did not mean to do so while July
remained. There was something grand in her upright carriage, in her air
of superiority, which had never been apparent before. She had always
been a woman, as Sloebury people said, who thought a great deal of
herself; but no one had ever acknowledged her right to do so till now.
On the other hand, July Herbert was well used to the cold shade. Her
mother was Mrs. Wynn's niece, but she was none the less poor for that,
and as July was not a girl to be easily put down, she was acquainted
with every manner of polite snubbing known in the society of the place.
This of standing till she should go was one with which she was perfectly
familiar, and in many cases it afforded her pleasure to subject the
operator to great personal inconvenience; but on the present occasion
she was not disposed to exercise this power. She would have conciliated
Walter's mother if she could have done so, and on a rapid survey of the
situation she decided that the best plan was to yield.

"I must go and tell mamma the great news," she said. "I am sure she will
never rest till she rushes to you with her congratulations; but I will
tell her you are tired of congratulations already--for of course it is
not a thing upon which there can be two opinions." July laid down the
cassock as she spoke. "I have mended all there is to mend, Aunt Lydia;
you need not take any more trouble about it. Good-bye for the moment.
You may be sure you will see one or other of us before night."

They watched her silently as she went out of the room. Mrs. Methven
saying nothing till the door had closed, Mrs. Wynn with a deprecatory
smile upon her face. She did not altogether approve of her grandniece.
But neither was she willing to hand her over to blame. The old lady felt
the snub July had received more than the girl herself did. She looked a
little wistfully after her. She was half angry when as soon as July
disappeared Mrs. Methven sank down upon a chair near her, huge billows
of black silk rising about her, for she had put on her best gown. Mrs.
Wynn thought that the mother, whose child, disapproved by the world, had
been thus miraculously lifted above its censures, should have been all
the more tolerant of the other who had met no such glorious fate. But
she reflected that _they never see it_, which was her favourite
expression of wonderment, yet explanation of everything. There were so
many things that _they_ ought to learn by; but they never saw it. It was
thus she accounted with that shake of her head for all the errors of
mankind.

Mrs. Methven for her part waited till even the very step of that
objectionable Julia Herbert had died away. She had known by instinct
that if _that_ girl should appear she would be on the watch to make
herself agreeable to Walter's mother. "As if he could ever have thought
of her," she said to herself. Twenty-four hours before Mrs. Methven
would have been glad to think that Walter "thought of" any girl who was
at all in his own position. She would have hailed it as a means of
steadying him, and making him turn seriously to his life. But everything
was now changed, and this interruption had been very disagreeable. She
could scarcely turn to her old friend now with the effusion and emotion
which had filled her when she came in. She held out her hand and grasped
that of the old lady.

"I don't need to tell you what I am feeling," she said. "It is all like
a tumultuous sea of wonder and thankfulness. I wanted it, for I was at
my wits' end."

Mrs. Wynn was a little chilled too, but she took the younger woman's
hand.

"You did not know what was coming," she said. "You wanted one thing, and
Providence was preparing another."

"I don't know if that is how to state it; but at all events I was
getting to feel that I could not bear it any longer, and trying for any
way of setting things right: when the good came in this superlative way.
I feel frightened when I think of it. After we knew last night I could
do nothing but cry. It took all the strength from me. You would have
thought it was bad news."

"I can understand that." The old lady relinquished the hand which she
had been holding. "To be delivered from any anxieties you may have had
in such a superlative way, as you say, is not the common lot--most of us
have just to fight them out."

Mrs. Methven already felt herself far floated away from those that had
to fight it out. The very words filled her heart with an elation beyond
speech.

"And this morning," she said, "to wake and to feel it must be folly, and
then to realise that it was true! One knows so well the other sort of
waking when the shock and the pang come all over again. But to wake up
to this extraordinary incredible well-being--one might say happiness!"

The tears of joy were in her eyes, and in those tears there is something
so strange, so rare, that the soul experienced in life looks upon them
almost with more awe than upon the familiar ones of grief which we see
every day. The old lady melted, and her chill of feeling yielded to a
tender warmth. Yet what a pity that They never see it! How much more
perfect it would have been if the woman in her happiness had been
softened and kind to all those whom nothing had happened to!
Imperceptibly the old lady in her tolerant experience shook her gentle
old head. Then she gave herself in full sympathy to hear all the
wonderful details.




CHAPTER V.


The sentiments of the spectators in such a grand alteration of fortune
may be interesting enough, and it is in general more easy to get at them
than at those which fill the mind of the principal actor. In the present
case it is better to say of the principal subject of the change, for
Walter could not be said to be an actor at all. The emotions of the
first evening it would indeed be impossible to describe. To come in from
his small country-town society, to whom even he was so far inferior that
every one of them had facilities of getting and spending money which he
did not possess, and to sit down, all tremulous and guilty, feeling
himself the poorest creature, opposite to the serious and important
personage who came to tell him, with documents as solemn as himself,
that this silly youth who had been throwing away his life for nothing,
without even the swell of excitement to carry him on, had suddenly
become, without deserving it, without doing anything to bring it about,
an individual of the first importance--a peer, a proprietor, a great
man. Walter could have sobbed as his mother did, had not pride kept him
back. When they sat down at table in the little dining-room there were
two at least of the party who ate nothing, who sat and gazed at each
other across the others with white faces and blazing eyes. Mr.
Milnathort made a good dinner, and sat very watchful, making also his
observations, full of curiosity and a certain half-professional
interest. But Cousin Sophy was the only one who really got the good of
this prodigious event. She asked if they might not have some champagne
to celebrate the day. She was in high excitement but quite
self-controlled, and enjoyed it thoroughly. She immediately began in her
thoughts to talk of my young cousin Lord Erradeen. It was a delightful
advancement which would bring her no advantage, and yet almost pleased
her more than so much added on to her income; for Miss Merivale was not
of any distinction in her parentage, and suddenly to find herself cousin
to a lord went to her heart: it was a great benefit to the solitary lady
fond of society, and very eager for a helping hand to aid her up the
ascent. And it was she who kept the conversation going. She even flirted
a little, quite becomingly, with the old lawyer, who felt her, it was
evident, a relief from the high tension of the others, and was amused by
the vivacious middle-aged lady, who for the moment had everything her
own way. After dinner there was a great deal of explanation given, and a
great many facts made clear, but it is to be doubted whether Walter knew
very well what was being said. He listened with an air of attention,
but it was as if he were listening to some fairy tale. Something out of
the _Arabian Nights_ was being repeated before him. He was informed how
the different branches of his family had died out one after another.
"Captain Methven was aware that he was in the succession," the lawyer
said; and Mrs. Methven cast a thought back, half-reproachful,
half-approving upon her husband, who had been dead so long that his
words and ways were like shadows to her, which she could but faintly
recall. Would it have been better if he had told her? After pursuing
this thought a long time she decided that it would not, that he had done
wisely--yet felt a little visionary grudge and disappointment to think
that he had been able to keep such a secret from her. No doubt it was
all for the best. She might have distracted herself with hopes, and worn
out her mind with waiting. It was doubtful if the support of knowing
what was going to happen would really have done her any good; but yet it
seemed a want of trust in her, it seemed even to put her in a partially
ridiculous position now, as knowing nothing, not having even an idea of
what was coming. But Walter did not share any of these goings back upon
the past. He had scarcely known his father, nor was he old enough to
have had such a secret confided to him for long after Captain Methven
died. He thought nothing of that. He sat with an appearance of the
deepest attention, but unaware of what was being said, with a vague
elation in his mind, something that seemed to buoy him up above the
material earth. He could not bring himself down again. It was what he
remembered to have felt when he was a child when some long-promised
pleasure was coming--to-morrow. Even in that case hindrances might come
in. It might rain to-morrow, or some similar calamity might occur. But
rain could not affect this. He sat and listened and did not hear a word.

Next morning Walter awoke very early, before the wintry day had fully
dawned. He opened his eyes upon a sort of paling and whitening of
everything--a grey perception of the walls about him, and the lines of
the window marked upon the paleness outside. What was it that made even
these depressing facts exhilarate him and rouse an incipient delight in
his mind, which for the moment he did not understand? Then he sat up
suddenly in his bed. It was cold, it was dark. There was no assiduous
servant to bring hot water or light his fire--everything was chilling
and wretched; and he was not given to early rising. Ordinarily it was an
affair of some trouble to get him roused, to see that he was in time for
a train or for any early occupation. But this morning he found it
impossible to lie still; an elasticity in him, an elation and buoyancy,
which he almost felt, with a laugh, might float him up to the ceiling,
like the mediums, made him jump up, as it were in self-defence. It
buoyed him, it carried him as on floating pinions into a limitless
heaven. What was it? Who was he? The chill of the morning brought him a
little to himself, and then he sat down in his shirt-sleeves and
delivered himself up to the incredible, and laughed low and long, with a
sense of the impossibility of it that brought tears to his eyes. He Lord
Erradeen, Lord Anything! He a peer, a great man! he with lands and money
and wealth of every sort, who last night had been pleased to win two
sixpences! After the buoyancy and sensation of rising beyond the world
altogether, which was a kind of physical consciousness of something
great that had happened before he was awake, came this sense of the
ludicrous, this incredulity and confused amusement. He dressed himself
in this mood, laughing low from time to time, to himself, as if it were
some game which was being played upon him, but of which he was in the
secret, and not to be deceived, however artfully it might be managed.
But when he was dressed and ready to go down-stairs--by which time
daylight had fully struggled forth upon a wet and clammy world--he
stopped himself short with a sudden reminder that to-day this curious
practical joke was to extend its career and become known to the world.
He laughed again, but then he grew grave, standing staring at the closed
door of his bedroom, out of which he was about to issue--no longer a
nobody--in a new character, to meet the remarks, the congratulations of
his friends. He knew that the news would fly through the little town
like lightning; that people would stop each other in the streets and
ask, "Have you heard it?--is it true?" and that throughout the whole
place there would be a sort of revolution, a general change of
positions, which would confuse the very world. He knew vaguely that
whatever else might happen he would be uppermost. The people who had
disapproved of him, and treated him _de haut en bas_, would find this to
be impossible any longer. He would be in a position which is to be seen
on the stage and in books more frequently than in common life--possessed
of the power of making retribution, of punishing the wicked, and
distributing to the good tokens of his favour. It is a thing we would
all like to do, to avenge ourselves (within due Christian and social
limits) on the persons who have despised us, and to reward those who
have believed in us, showing the one how right they were, and the other
how wrong they were, with a logic that should be undeniable. There is
nobody who has ever endured a snub--and who has not?--who would not
delight in doing this; but the most of us never get such a supreme
gratification, and Walter was to have it. He was going to see everybody
abashed and confounded who had ever treated him with contumely. Once
more he felt that sensation of buoyancy and elation as if he were
spurning earth with his foot and ready to soar into some sort of
celestial sphere. And then once more he laughed to himself. Was it
possible? could it be? would anybody believe it? He thought there would
be an explosion of incredulous laughter through all the streets; but
then, when that was over, both friends and foes would be forced to
believe it--as he himself was forced to believe.

With that he opened his door, and went down-stairs into the new world.
He stumbled over the housemaid's pail, of course, but did not call forth
any frown upon that functionary's freckled forehead as he would have
done yesterday. On the contrary, she took away the pail, and begged his
pardon with awe--being of course entirely blameless. He paused for a
moment on the steps as he faced the raw morning air going out, and lo!
the early baker, who was having a word with cook at the area over the
rolls, turned towards him with a reverential look, and pulled off his
cap. These were the first visible signs of Walter's greatness; they gave
him a curious sort of conviction that after all the thing was true.

There was scarcely anybody about the Sloebury streets except bakers and
milkmen at this hour. It was a leisurely little town, in which nothing
particular was doing, no manufactures or business to demand early hours;
and the good people did not get up early. Why should they? the day was
long enough without that: so that Walter met no one in his early
promenade. But before he got back there were symptoms that the
particular baker who had taken off his cap had whispered the news to
others of his fraternity, who, having no tie of human connection, such
as supplying the family with rolls, to justify a salutation, only
stared at him with awe-stricken looks as he went past. He felt he was
an object of interest even to the policeman going off duty, who being an
old soldier, saluted with a certain grandeur as he tramped by. The young
man took an aimless stroll through the half-awakened district. The roads
were wet, the air raw: it was not a cheerful morning; damp and
discouragement breathed in the air; the little streets looked squalid
and featureless in shabby British poverty; lines of low, two-storied
brick, all commonplace and monotonous. It was the sort of morning to
make you think of the tediousness to which most people get up every day,
supposing it to be life, and accepting it as such with the dull content
which knows no better; a life made up of scrubbing out of kitchens and
sweeping out of parlours, of taking down shutters and putting them up
again; all sordid, petty, unbroken by an exhilarating event. But this
was not what struck Walter as he floated along in his own wonderful
atmosphere, seeing nothing, noting everything with the strange vision of
excitement. Afterwards he recollected with extraordinary vividness a man
who stood stretching his arms in shirt sleeves above his head for a
long, soul-satisfying yawn, and remembered to have looked up at the
shop-window within which he was standing, and read the name of Robinson
in gilt letters. Robinson, yawning in his shirt-sleeves, against a
background of groceries, pallid in the early light, remained with him
like a picture for many a day.

When he got back the breakfast table was spread, and his mother taking
her place at it. Mr. Milnathort had not gone away as he intended by the
night train. He had remained in Mrs. Methven's spare room, surrounded by
all the attentions and civilities that a household of women, regarding
him with a sort of awe as a miraculous messenger or even creator of good
fortune, could show to a bachelor gentleman, somewhat prim and
old-fashioned in his habits and ways. It was his intention to leave
Sloebury by the eleven o'clock train, and he had arranged that Walter
should meet him in Edinburgh within a week, to be made acquainted with
several family matters, in which, as the head of the house, it was
necessary that he should be fully instructed. Neither Walter nor his
mother paid very much attention to these arrangements, nor even remarked
that the old lawyer spoke of them with great gravity. Mrs. Methven was
busy making tea, and full of anxiety that Mr. Milnathort should
breakfast well and largely, after what she had always understood to be
the fashion of his country; and as for Walter, he was not in a state of
mind to observe particularly any such indications of manner. Cousin
Sophia was the only one who remarked the solemnity of his tone and
aspect.

"One would suppose there was some ordeal to go through," she said in her
vivacious way.

"A young gentleman who is taking up a large fortune and a great
responsibility will have many ordeals to go through, madam," Mr.
Milnathort said in his deliberate tones: but he did not smile or take
any other notice of her archness. It was settled accordingly, that after
a few days for preparation and leave-taking, young Lord Erradeen should
leave Sloebury. "And if I might advise, alone," Mr. Milnathort said,
"the place is perhaps not just in a condition to receive ladies. I would
think it wiser on the whole, madam, if you deferred your coming till his
lordship there has settled everything for your reception."

"_My_ coming?" said Mrs. Methven. The last twelve hours had made an
extraordinary difference in her feelings and faith; but still she had
not forgotten what had gone before, nor the controversies and struggles
of the past. "We must leave all that for after consideration," she said.

Walter was about to speak impulsively, but old Milnathort stopped him
with a skilful interruption--

"It will perhaps be the wisest way," he said; "there will be many things
to arrange. When Lord Erradeen has visited the property, and understands
everything about it, then he will be able to----"

Walter heard the name at first with easy unconsciousness: then it
suddenly blazed forth upon him as his own name. His mother at the other
end of the table felt the thrill of the same sensation. Their eyes met;
and all the wonder of this strange new life suddenly gleamed upon them
with double force. It is true that the whole condition of their minds
was affected by this revelation, that there was nothing about them that
was not full of it, and that they were actually at this moment
discussing the business connected with it. Still it all came to life now
as at the first moment at the sound of this name, Lord Erradeen! Walter
could not help laughing to himself over his coffee.

"I can't tell who you mean," he said. "You must wait a little until I
realise what Walter Methven has got to do with it."

Mrs. Methven thought that this was making too much of the change. She
already wished to believe, or at least to persuade Mr. Milnathort to
believe, that she was not so very much surprised after all.

"Lord Erradeen," she said, "is too much amused at present with having
got a new name to take the change very seriously."

"He will soon learn the difference, madam," said Mr. Milnathort.
"Property is a thing that has always to be taken seriously: and of all
property the Erradeen lands. There are many things connected with them
that he will have to set his face to in a way that will be far from
amusing."

The old lawyer had a very grave countenance--perhaps it was because he
was a Scotchman. He worked through his breakfast with a steady routine
that filled the ladies with respect. First fish, then kidneys, then a
leg of the partridge that had been left from dinner last night; finally
he looked about the table with an evident sense of something wanting,
and though he declared that it was of no consequence, avowed at last,
with some shyness, that it was the marmalade for which he was looking:
and there was none in the house! Mr. Milnathort was full of excuses for
having made such a suggestion. It was just a Scotch fashion he declared;
it was of no consequence. Mrs. Methven, who held an unconscious
conviction that it was somehow owing to him that Walter had become Lord
Erradeen, was made quite unhappy by the omission.

"I shall know better another time," she said regretfully. They were all
still under the impression more or less that it was his doing. He was
not a mere agent to them, but the god, out of the machinery, who had
turned darkness into light. He justified this opinion still more fully
before he went away, putting into Walter's hand a cheque-book from a
London bank, into which a sum of money which seemed to the inexperienced
young man inexhaustible, had been paid to his credit. The old gentleman
on his side seemed half-embarrassed, half-impatient after a while by the
attention shown him. He resisted when Walter declared his intention of
going to the railway to see him off.

"That is just a reversal of our positions," he said.

At this Mrs. Methven became a little anxious, fearing that perhaps
Walter's simplicity might be going too far. She gave him a word of
warning when the cab drove up for Mr. Milnathort's bag. It was not a
very large one, and Walter was quite equal to the condescension of
carrying it to the station if his mother had not taken that precaution.
She could not make up her mind that he was able to manage for himself.

"You must remember that after all he is only your man of business," she
said, notwithstanding all the worship she had herself been paying to
this emissary of fortune. It was a relief to shake hands with him, to
see him drive away from the door, leaving behind him such an amazing,
such an incalculable change. Somehow it was more easy to realise it when
he was no longer there. And this was what Walter felt when he walked
away from the railway, having seen with great satisfaction the grizzled
head of the old Scotsman nod at him from a window of the departing
train. The messenger was gone; the thing which he had brought with him,
did that remain? Was it conceivable that it was now fixed and certain
not to be affected by anything that could be done or said? Walter walked
steadily enough along the pavement, but he did not think he was doing
so. The world around him swam in his eyes once more. He could not make
sure that he was walking on solid ground, or mounting up into the air.
How different it was from the way in which he had come forth yesterday,
idle, half-guilty, angry with himself and everybody, yet knowing very
well what to do, turning with habitual feet into the way where all the
other idlers congregated, knowing who he should meet and what would
happen. He was separated from all that as if by an ocean. He had no
longer anything to do with these foolish loungers. His mother had told
him a thousand times in often varied tones that they were not companions
for him; to-day he recognised the fact with a certain disgust. He felt
it more strongly still when he suddenly came across Captain Underwood
coming up eagerly with outstretched hands.

"I hope I am the first to congratulate you, Lord Erradeen," he said.
"Now you will know why I asked you yesterday, Was there any news----"

"Now I shall know? I don't a bit; what do you mean? Do you mean me to
believe that _you_ had any hand in it?" Walter cried, with a tone of
mingled incredulity and disdain.

"No hand in it, unless I had helped to put the last poor dear lord out
of the way. I could scarcely have had that; but if you mean did I know
about it, I certainly did, as you must if you had been a little more in
the world."

"Why didn't you tell me then?" said Walter. He added somewhat hotly,
with something of the sublime assumption of youth: "Waiting for a man to
die would never have suited me. I much prefer to have been, as you say,
out of the world----"

"Oh, Lord! I didn't mean to offend you," said the captain. "Don't get on
a high horse. Of course, if you'd known your Debrett as I do, you would
have seen the thing plain enough. However, we needn't quarrel about it.
I have always said you were my pupil, and I hope I have put you up to a
few things that will be of use on your entry into society."

"Have you?" said Walter. He could not think how he had ever for a moment
put up with this under-bred person. Underwood stood before him with a
sort of jaunty rendering of the appeal with which grooms and people
about the stable remind a young man of what in his boyish days they have
done for him--an appeal which has its natural issue in a sovereign. But
he could not give Underwood a sovereign, and it was perhaps just a
little ungenerous to turn in the first moment of his prosperity from a
man who, from whatever purpose, had been serviceable to him in his
poverty. He said, with an attempt to be more friendly: "I know,
Underwood, you have been very kind."

"Oh, by Jove! kind isn't the word. I knew you'd want a bit of training;
the best thoroughbred that ever stepped wants that; and if I can be of
any use to you in the future, I will. I knew old Erradeen; I've known
all about the family for generations. There are a great many curious
things about it, but I think I can help you through them," said the
captain with a mixture of anxiety and swagger. There had always been
something of this same mixture about him, but Walter had never been
fully conscious what it was till now.

"Thank you," he said; "perhaps it will be better to let that develop
itself in a natural way. I am going to Scotland in a week, and then I
shall have it at first hand."

"Then I can tell you beforehand you will find a great many things you
won't like," said Underwood, abruptly. "It is not for nothing that a
family gets up such a reputation. I know two or three of your places.
Mulmorrel, and the shooting-box on Loch Etive, and that mysterious old
place at Kinloch-houran. I have been at every one of them. It was not
everybody, I can tell you, that old Erradeen would have taken to that
place. Why, there is a mystery at every corner. There is----"

Walter held up his hand to stay this torrent. He coloured high with a
curious sentiment of proprietorship and the shrinking of pride from
hearing that which was his discussed by strangers. He scarcely knew the
names of them, and their histories not at all. He put up his hand: "I
would rather find out the mysteries for myself," he said.

"Oh," cried Underwood, "if you are standing on your dignity, my lord, as
you like, for that matter. I am not one to thrust my company upon any
man if he doesn't like it. I have stood your friend, and I would again;
but as for forcing myself upon you now that you've come to your
kingdom----"

"Underwood," cried the other, touched in the tenderest point, "if you
dare to insinuate that this has changed me, I desire never to speak to
you again. But it is only, I suppose, one of the figures of speech that
people use when they are angry. I am not such a cad as you make me out.
Whether my name is Methven or Erradeen--I don't seem to know very well
which it is----"

"It is both," the other cried with a great laugh, and they shook hands,
engaging to dine together at the hotel that evening. Underwood, who was
knowing in such matters, was to order the dinner, and two or three of
"the old set," were to be invited. It would be a farewell to his former
comrades, as Walter intended; and with a curious recurrence of his first
elation he charged his representative to spare no expense. There was
something intoxicating and strange in the very phrase.

As he left Underwood and proceeded along the High Street, where, if he
had not waved his hand to them in passing with an air of haste and
pre-occupation, at least every second person he met would have stopped
him to wish him joy, he suddenly encountered July Herbert. She was going
home from the vicarage, out of which his mother had politely driven her;
and it seemed the most wonderful luck to July to get him to herself,
thus wholly unprotected, and with nobody even to see what she was after.
She went up to him, not with Underwood's eagerness, but with a pretty
frank pleasure in her face.

"I have heard a fairy tale," she said, "and it is true----"

"I suppose you mean about me," said Walter. "Yes, I am afraid it is
true. I don't exactly know who I am at present."

"Afraid!" cried July. "Ah, you know you don't mean that. At all events,
you are no longer just the old Walter whom we have known all our lives."

There was another girl with her whom Walter knew but slightly, but who
justified the plural pronoun.

"On the contrary, I was going to say, when you interrupted me----"

"I am so sorry I interrupted you."

"That though I did not know who I was in the face of the world, I was
always the old Walter, &c. A man, I believe, can never lose his
Christian name."

"Nor a woman either," said July. "That is the only thing that cannot be
taken from us. We are supposed, you know, rather to like the loss of the
other one."

"I have heard so," said Walter, who was not unaccustomed to this sort of
fencing. "But I suppose it is not true."

"Oh," said July, "if it were for the same reason that makes you change
your name, I should not mind. But there is no peerage in our family that
I know of, and I should not have any chance if there were, alas!
Good-bye, Lord Erradeen. It is a lovely name! And may I always speak to
you when I meet you, though you are such a grand personage? We do not
hope to see you at the Cottage now, but mamma will like to know that you
still recognise an old friend."

"I shall come and ask Mrs. Herbert what she thinks of it all," Walter
said.

July's brown eyes flashed out with triumph as she laughed and waved her
hand to him. She said--

"It will be too great an honour," and curtseyed; then laughed again as
she went on, casting a glance at him over her shoulder.

He laughed too; he was young, and he was gratified even by this
undisguised provocation, though he could not help saying to himself,
with a slight beat of his heart, how near he was to falling in love with
that girl! What a good thing it was that he did not--_now_!

As for July, she looked at him with a certain ferocity, as if she would
have devoured him. To think of all that boy had it in his power to give
if he pleased, and to think how little a poor girl could do!




CHAPTER VI.


Mrs. Methven was conscious of a new revival of the old displeasure when
Walter informed her of the engagement he had formed for the evening. She
was utterly disappointed. She had thought that the great and beneficial
shock of this new life would turn his character altogether, and convert
him into that domestic sovereign, that object of constant reference,
criticism, and devotion which every woman would have every man be. It
was a wonderful mortification and enlightenment to find that without
even the interval of a single evening devoted to the consideration of
his new and marvellous prospects, and that talking over which is one of
the sweetest parts of a great and happy event, he should return--to
what?--to wallowing in the mire, as the Scripture says, to his old
billiard-room acquaintances, the idlers and undesirable persons with
whom he had formed associations. Could there be anything more unsuitable
than Lord Erradeen in the midst of such a party, with Underwood, and
perhaps worse than Underwood. It wounded her pride and roused her
temper, and, in spite of all her efforts, it was with a lowering brow
that she saw him go away. Afterwards, indeed, when she thought of it, as
she did for hours together, while cousin Sophia talked, and she
languidly replied, maintaining a conversation from the lips outward, so
poor a substitute for the evening's talking over and happy consultation
she had dreamed of--Mrs. Methven was more just to her son. She tried
always to be just, poor lady. She placed before herself all the reasons
for his conduct. That he should entertain the men who, much against her
wish and his own good, yet in their way had been kind to and entertained
him, was natural. But to do it this first evening was hard, and she
could not easily accept her disappointment. Afterwards she reminded
herself with a certain stern philosophy that because Walter had owned a
touch of natural emotion, and had drawn near to her and confessed
himself in the wrong, that was no reason why his character should be
changed in a moment. There were numbers of men who on occasion felt and
lamented their misdoing, yet went on again in the same way. He had been
no doubt startled, as some are by calamity, by the more extraordinary
shock of this good fortune; but why should he for that abandon all the
tastes and occupations of his former life? It was she, she said to
herself, with some bitterness, who was a fool. The fact was that Walter
meant no harm at all, and that it was merely the first impulse of a
half-scornful liberality, impatience of the old associations, which he
had tacitly acknowledged were not fit for him, that led him back to his
former companions. He felt afterwards that it would have been in better
taste had he postponed this for a night. But he was very impatient and
eager to shake himself free of them, and enter upon his new career.

Something of the same disappointed and disapproving sentiment filled
Mrs. Methven's mind when she heard of his visit to the Cottage. She knew
no reason why he should take a special leave of July Herbert; if he knew
himself a reason, which he did not disclose, that was another matter.
Thoughts like this embittered the preparations for his departure, which
otherwise would have been so agreeable. She had to see after many things
which a young man of more wealth, or more independent habits, would have
done for himself--his linen, his portmanteau, most of the things he
wanted, except the tailor part of the business; but it was not until the
last evening that there was any of the confidential consultation, for
which her heart had longed. Even on that last day Walter had been very
little indoors. He had been busy with a hundred trifles, and she had
begun to make up her mind to his going away without a word said as to
their future relations, as to whether he meant his mother to share any
of the advantages of his new position, or to drop her at Sloebury as
something done with, which he did not care to burden himself with, any
more than the other circumstances of his past career. She did so little
justice to the real generosity of her son's temper in the closeness of
her contest with him, and the heat of personal feeling, that she had
begun to make up her mind to this, with what pain and bitterness it is
unnecessary to say.

She had even began to make excuses for her own desertion in the tumult
of endless thought upon this one subject which possessed her. She would
be just; after all, was it not better perhaps that she should be left in
the little house which was her independent home, for which she owed
nothing to any one? If any unnecessary sense of gratitude made him offer
her reluctantly a share in his new life, that would be humiliation
indeed. If, as was apparent, her society, her advice, her love were
nothing to him, was it not far better that both should recognise the
situation, and view things in their true light? This the proud woman had
made up her mind to, with what depth of wounded tenderness and
embittered affection who could say? She had packed for him with her own
hands, for all his permanent arrangements were to be made after he had
left Sloebury, and to change her household in consequence of an
alteration of fortune which, according to all appearances, would not
concern her, was, she had proudly decided, quite out of the question.
She packed for him as in the days when he was going to school, when he
was a boy, and liked everything better that had been done by his mother.
A woman may be pardoned for feeling such a difference with a passionate
soreness and sense of downfall. In those days how she had thought of the
time when he would be grown up, when he would understand all her
difficulties and share all her cares, and in his own advancement make
her triumphant and happy! God forgive me, she said to herself, now he
has got advancement far above my hopes, and I am making myself wretched
thinking of myself. She stopped and cried a little over his new linen.
No, he was right; if it must be allowed that they did not "get on," it
was indeed far better in the long run that there should be no false
sentiment, no keeping up of an untenable position. Thank God she
required nothing; she had enough; she wanted neither luxury nor
grandeur, and her home, her natural place was here, where she had lived
so many years, where she could disarm all comment upon Walter's neglect
of her, by saying that she preferred the place where she had lived so
long, and where she had so many friends. Why, indeed, should she change
her home at her time of life? No doubt he would come back some time and
see her; but after all why should her life be unsettled because his was
changed? It was he who showed true sense in his way of judging the
matter, she said to herself with a smile, through the hastily dried and
momentary tears.

Walter came in when the packing was just about concluded. He came half
way up the stairs and called "Mother, where are you?" as he had often
done when he was a boy and wanted her at every turn, but as he never did
now. This touched and weakened her again in her steady resolution to
let him see no repining in her. "Are you packing for me?" he called out
again; "what a shame while I have been idling! But come down, mother,
please, and leave that. You forget we have everything to settle yet."

"What is there to settle?" she said, with a certain sharpness of tone
which she could not quite suppress, coming out upon the landing. The
maids who were going to bed, and who heard all this, thought it was
beautiful to hear his lordship speaking like that, quite natural to his
mother; but that missus was that hard it was no wonder if they didn't
get on; and Cousin Sophia from her virgin retirement, where she sat in
her dressing-gown reading a French novel, and very much alive to every
sound, commented in her own mind, closing her book, in the same sense.
"Now she will just go and hold him at arm's length while the boy's heart
is melting, and then break her own," Miss Merivale said to herself. Thus
everybody was against her and in favour of the fortunate young fellow
who had been supping on homage and flattery, and now came in easy and
careless to make everything straight at the last moment. Mrs. Methven on
her side was very tired, and tremulous with the exertion of packing. It
would have been impossible for her to banish that tone out of her voice.
She stood in the subdued light upon the stairs looking down upon him,
leaning on the banister to support herself; while he, with all the light
from below upon his face, ruddy with the night air, and the applauses,
and his own high well-being, looked up gaily at her. He had shaken off
all his old irritability in the confidence of happiness and good fortune
that had taken possession of him. After a moment he came springing up
the stairs three at a time.

"You look tired, mother, while I have been wasting my time. Come down,
and let us have our talk. I'll do all the rest to-morrow," he said,
throwing his arm round her and leading her down-stairs. He brought her
some wine first of all and a footstool, and threw himself into the easy
task of making her comfortable. "Now," he said, "let's talk it all
over," drawing a chair to her side.

All this was quite new upon Walter's part--or rather quite old,
belonging to an age which had long ago gone.

"Isn't it rather late for that?" she said, with a faint smile.

"Yes, and I am ashamed of myself; but, unfortunately, you are so used to
that. We must settle, however, mother. I am to go first of all to
Kinloch-houran, which Milnathort says is not a place for you. Indeed, I
hear----" here he paused a little as if he would have named his
authority, and continued, "that it is a ruinous sort of place; and why I
should go there, I don't know."

"Where did you hear?" she said, with quick suspicion.

"Well, mother, I would rather not have mentioned his name; but if you
wish to know, from Underwood. I know you are prejudiced against him.
Yes, it is prejudice, though I don't wonder at it. I care nothing for
the fellow; but still it comes out, which is rather strange, that he
knows these places, and a good deal about the Erradeens."

"Is that, then," cried the mother quickly, "the reason of his being
here?"

"He never said so, nor have I asked him," answered Walter, with
something of his old sullenness; but then he added--"The same thought
has crossed my own mind, mother, and I shouldn't wonder if it were so."

"Walter," she said, "a man like that can have but one motive--the desire
to aggrandise himself. For heaven's sake, don't have anything to do with
him; don't let him get an influence over you."

"You must have a very poor opinion of me, mother," he said, in an
aggrieved tone.

She looked at him with a curious gaze, silenced, as it seemed. She loved
him more than anything in the world, and thought of him above
everything; and yet perhaps in that wrath with those we love which works
like madness in the brain, it was true what he said--that she had a poor
opinion of him. Extremes meet, as the proverb says. However, this was a
mystery too deep for Walter to enter into.

"Don't let us waste words about Underwood," he said. "I care nothing for
the fellow; he is vulgar and presuming--as you always said."

Partly, no doubt, this avowal was made with the intention of pleasing
his mother; at the same time it proved the great moral effect of
promotion in rank. Lord Erradeen saw with the utmost distinctness what
Walter Methven had only glimpsed by intervals. And it is impossible to
describe how this speech pleased Mrs. Methven. Her tired eyes began to
shine, her heart to return to its brighter hopes.

"The thing is, what arrangements you wish me to make," said Walter.
"What are you going to do? I hear Mulmorrel is a handsome house, but
it's November, and naturally it is colder in the north. Do you think you
would care to go there now, or wait till the weather is better? It may
want furnishing, for anything I know; and it appears we've got a little
house in town."

"Walter," she said, in a voice which was husky and tremulous, "before
you enter upon all this--you must first think, my dear. Are you sure it
will be for your comfort to have me with you at all? Wouldn't you rather
be free, and make your own arrangements, and leave me--as I am?"

"MOTHER?" the young man cried. He got up suddenly from where he was
sitting beside her, and pushed away his chair, and stood facing her,
with a sudden paleness and fiery eyes that seemed to dazzle her. He had
almost kicked her footstool out of his way in his excitement and wounded
feeling. "Do you mean to say you want to have nothing to do with me?" he
said.

"Oh! my boy, you could not think so. I thought that was what--you meant.
I wish only what is for your good."

"Would it be for my good to be an unnatural cad?" said the young man,
with rising indignation--"a heartless, ill-conditioned whelp, with no
sense and no feeling? Oh, mother! mother! what a poor opinion you must
have of me!" he cried; and so stung was he with this blow that sudden
tears sprang to his eyes. "All because I'm a fool and put everything off
to the last moment," he added, in a sort of undertone, as if explaining
it to himself. "But I'm not a beast for all that," he said, fiercely.

She made him no reply, but sat and gazed at him with a remorse and
compunction, which, painful sentiments as they are, were to her sweet as
the dews from heaven. Yes, it appeared that through all her passionate
and absorbing tenderness she had had a poor opinion of him. She had done
him injustice. The conviction was like a new birth. That he should be
Lord Erradeen was nothing in comparison of being, as he thus proved
himself, good and true, open to the influences of affection and nature.
She could not speak, but her eyes were full of a thousand things; they
asked him mutely to forgive her. They repented, and were abashed and
rejoiced all in one glance. The young man who had not been nearly so
heartless as she feared, was now not nearly so noble as she thought: but
he was greatly touched by the crisis, and by the suggestion of many a
miserable hour which was in her involuntary sin against him and in her
penitence. He came back again and sat close by her, and kissed her
tremulously.

"I have been a cad," he said. "I don't wonder you lost all faith in me,
mother."

"Not that, not that," she said faintly; and then there was a moment of
exquisite silence, in which, without a word, everything was atoned for,
and pardon asked and given.

And then began perhaps the happiest hour of Mrs. Methven's life, in
which they talked over everything and decided what was to be done. Not
to give up the house in Sloebury at present, nor indeed to do anything
at present, save wait till he had made his expedition into Scotland and
seen his new property, and brought her full particulars. After he had
investigated everything and knew exactly the capabilities of the house,
and the condition in which it was, and all the necessities and
expediencies, they would then decide as to the best thing to be done;
whether to go there, though at the worst time of the year, or to go to
London, which was an idea that pleased Walter but alarmed his mother.
Mrs. Methven did her best to remember what were the duties of a great
landed proprietor and to bring them home to her son.

"You ought to spend Christmas at your own place," she said. "There will
be charities and hospitalities and the poor people to look after."

She did not know Scotland, nor did she know very well what it was to be
a great country magnate. She had been but a poor officer's daughter
herself, and had married another officer, and been beaten about from
place to place before she settled down on her small income at Sloebury.
She had not much more experience than Walter himself had in this
respect; indeed, if the truth must be told, both of them drew their
chief information from novels, those much-abused sources of information,
in which the life of rural potentates is a favourite subject, and not
always described with much knowledge. Walter gravely consented to all
this, with a conscientious desire to do what was right: but he thought
the place would most likely be gloomy for his mother in winter, and that
hospitalities would naturally be uncalled for so soon after the death of
the old lord.

"What I would advise would be Park Lane," he said, with a judicial tone.
"Milnathort said that it was quite a small house."

"What is a small house in Park Lane would look a palace at Sloebury,"
Mrs. Methven said: "and you must not begin on an extravagant footing, my
dear."

"You will let us begin comfortably, I hope," he said; "and I must look
for a nice carriage for you, mother."

Walter felt disposed to laugh as he said the words, but carried them off
with an air of easy indifference as if it were the most natural thing in
the world: while his mother on her side could have cried for pleasure
and tenderness.

"You must not mind me, Walter; we must think what is best for yourself,"
she said, as proud and pleased as if she had twenty carriages.

"Nothing of the sort," he said. "We are going to be comfortable, and you
must have everything that is right first of all."

What an hour it was! now and then there will be given to one individual
out of a class a full measure of recompense heaped and overflowing, out
of which the rest may get a sympathetic pleasure though they do not
enjoy it in their own persons. Mrs. Methven had never imagined that this
would come to her, but lo! in a moment it was pouring upon her in floods
of consolation. So absorbing was this happy consultation that it was
only when her eyes suddenly caught the clock on the mantelpiece, and saw
that the hands were marking a quarter to two! that Mrs. Methven startled
awoke out of her bliss.

"My poor boy! that I should keep you up to this hour talking, and a long
journey before you to-morrow!" she cried.

She hustled him up to his room after this, talking and resisting gaily
to the very door. He was happy too with that sense of happiness
conferred, which is always sweet, and especially to youth in the
delightful, easy sense of power and beneficence. When he thought of it
he was a little remorseful, to think that he had possessed the power so
long and never exercised it, for Walter was generous enough to be aware
that the house in Park Lane and the carriage were not the occasions of
his mother's blessedness. "Poor mother," he said to himself softly. He
might have made her a great deal more happy if he had chosen before
these fine things were dreamt of. But Mrs. Methven remembered that no
more. She begged pardon of God on her knees for misjudging her boy, and
for once in her life was profoundly, undoubtingly happy, with a
perfection and fulness of content which perhaps could only come after
long experience of the reverse. After such a moment a human creature, if
possible, should die, so as to taste nothing less sweet: for the less
sweet, to be sure, must come back if life goes on, and at that moment
there was not a cloud or a suggestion of darkness upon the firmament.
She grudged falling asleep, though she was very tired, and so losing
this beautiful hour; but nature is wilful and will seldom abdicate the
night for joy, whatever she may do for grief.

Next morning she went to the station with him to see him away.
Impossible to describe the devotion of all the officials to Lord
Erradeen's comfort on his journey. The station-master kindly came to
superintend this august departure, and the porters ran about contending
for his luggage with an excitement which made, at least, one old
gentleman threaten to write to the _Times_. There was nothing but "my
lord" and "his lordship" to be heard all over the station; and so many
persons came to bid him good-bye and see the last of him, as they said,
that the platform was quite inconveniently crowded. Among these, of
course, was Captain Underwood, whose fervent--"God bless you, my
boy"--drowned all other greetings. He had, however, a disappointed
look--as if he had failed in some object. Mrs. Methven, whose faculties
were all sharpened by her position, and who felt herself able to
exercise a toleration which, in former circumstances, would have been
impossible to her, permitted him to overtake her as she left the place,
and acknowledged his greeting with more cordiality, or, at least, with a
less forbidding civility than usual. And then a wonderful sight was seen
in Sloebury. This _béte noir_ of the feminine world, this man whom every
lady frowned upon, was seen walking along the High Street, side by side,
in earnest conversation with one of the women who had been most
unfavourable to him. Was she listening to an explanation, a
justification, an account of himself, such as he had not yet given, to
satisfy the requirements of the respectability of Sloebury? To tell the
truth, Mrs. Methven now cared very little for any such explanation. She
did not remember, as she ought to have done, that other women's sons
might be in danger from this suspicious person, though her own was now
delivered out of his power. But she was very curious to know what
anybody could tell her of Walter's new possessions, and of the family
which it was rather humiliating to know so little about. It was she,
indeed, who had begun the conversation after his first remark upon
Walter's departure and the loss which would result to Sloebury.

"You know something about the Erradeens, my son tells me," she said
almost graciously.

"Something! I know about as much as most people. I knew he was the heir,
which few, except yourselves, did," the captain said. He cast a keen
glance at her when he said, "except yourselves."

"Indeed," said Mrs. Methven, "that is scarcely correct, for Walter did
not know, and I had forgotten. I had, indeed, lost sight of my husband's
family and the succession seemed so far off."

It was thus that she veiled her ignorance and endeavoured to make it
appear that indifference on her part, and a wise desire to keep Walter's
mind unaffected by such a dazzling possibility, had been her guiding
influence. She spoke with such modest gravity that Captain Underwood,
not used to delusion under that form, was tempted into a sort of belief.
He looked at her curiously, but her veil was down, and her artifice, if
it was an artifice, was of a kind more delicate than any to which he was
accustomed.

"Well!" he said, "then it was not such a surprise to you as people
thought? Sloebury has talked of nothing else, I need not tell you, for
several days; and everybody was of opinion that it burst upon you like a
thunderbolt."

"Upon my son, yes," Mrs. Methven said with a smile.

He looked at her again, and she had the satisfaction of perceiving that
this experienced man of the world was taken in.

"Well, then," he said, "you will join with me in wishing him well out of
it: you know all the stories that are about."

"I have never been at Mulmorrel--my husband's chances in his own
lifetime were very small, you know."

"It isn't Mulmorrel, it is that little ruined place where something
uncanny is always said to go on--oh, _I_ don't know what it is; nobody
does but the reigning sovereign himself, and some hangers-on, I suppose.
I have been there. I've seen the mysterious light, you know. Nobody can
ever tell what window it shows at, or if it is any window at all. I was
once with the late man--the late lord, he who died the other day--when
it came out suddenly. We were shooting wildfowl, and his gun fell out of
his hands. I never saw a man in such a funk. We were a bit late, and
twilight had come on before we knew."

"So then you actually saw something of it yourself?" Mrs. Methven said.
She had not the remotest idea what this was, but if she could find out
something by any means she was eager enough to take advantage of it.

"No more than that; but I can tell you this: Erradeen was not seen again
for twenty-four hours. Whether it was a call to him or what it was I
can't undertake to say. He never would stand any questioning about it.
He was a good fellow enough, but he never would put up with anything on
that point. So I can only wish Walter well through it, Mrs. Methven. In
my opinion he should have had some one with him; for he is young, and, I
dare say, he is fanciful."

"My son, Lord Erradeen," said Mrs. Methven with dignity, "is man enough,
I hope, to meet an emergency. Perhaps you think him younger than he is."
She propounded this delicately as, perhaps, a sort of excuse for the
presumption of the Christian name.

Underwood grew very red: he was disappointed and irritable. "Oh, of
course you know best," he said. "As for my Lord Erradeen (I am sure I
beg your pardon for forgetting his dignity), I dare say he is quite old
enough to take care of himself--at least, we'll hope so; but a business
of that kind will upset the steadiest brain, you know. Old Erradeen had
not a bad spirit of his own, and _he_ funked it. I confess I feel a
little anxious for your boy; he's a nice fellow, but he's nervous. I was
in a dozen minds to go up with him to stand by him; but, perhaps, it is
better not, for the best motives get misconstrued in this world. I can
only wish him well out of it," Captain Underwood said, taking off his
hat, and making her a fine bow as he stalked away.

It is needless to say that this mysterious intimation of danger planted
daggers in Mrs. Methven's heart. She stopped aghast: and for the moment
the idea of running back to the station, and signalling that the train
was to be stopped came into her mind. Ridiculous folly! Wish him well
out of it? What, out of his great fortune, his peerage, his elevation in
the world? Mrs. Methven smiled indignantly, and thought of the strange
manifestations under which envy shows itself. But she went home somewhat
pale, and could not dismiss it from her mind as she wished to do. Well
out of it! And there were moments when, she remembered, she had
surprised a very serious look on the countenance of Mr. Milnathort. Was
Walter going unwarned, in the elation and happy confidence of his heart,
into some danger unknown and unforeseen? This took her confidence away
from her, and made her nervous and anxious. But after all, what folly it
must be: something uncanny and a mysterious light! These were stories
for Christmas, to bring a laugh or a shiver from idle circles round the
fire. To imagine that they could effect anything in real life was a kind
of madness; an old-fashioned, exploded superstition. It was too
ridiculous to be worthy a thought.




CHAPTER VII.


Walter arrived in Edinburgh on a wintry morning white and chill. A sort
of woolly shroud wrapped all the fine features of the landscape. He
thought the dingy turrets of the Calton Jail were the Castle, and was
much disappointed, as was natural. Arthur's Seat and the Crags were as
entirely invisible as if they had been a hundred miles away, and the
cold crept into his very bones after his night's journey, although it
had been made luxuriously, in a way very different from his former
journeyings. Also it struck him as strange and uncomfortable that nobody
was aware of the change in his position, and that even the railway
porter, to whom he gave a shilling (as a commoner he would have been
contented with sixpence), only called him "Sir," and could not perceive
that it would have been appropriate to say my lord. He went to an hotel,
as it was so early, and found only a dingy little room to repose himself
in, the more important part of the house being still in the hands of the
housemaids. And when he gave his name as Lord Erradeen, the attendants
stared at him with a sort of suspicion. They looked at his baggage
curiously, and evidently asked each other if it was possible he could be
what he claimed to be. Walter had a half-consciousness of being an
impostor, and trying to take these surprised people in. He thawed,
however, as he ate his breakfast, and the mist began to rise, revealing
the outline of the Old Town. He had never been in Edinburgh before; he
had rarely been anywhere before. It was all new to him, even the sense
of living in an inn. There was a curious freedom about it, and
independence of all restraint, which pleased him. But it was very
strange to be absolutely unknown, to meet the gaze of faces he had never
seen before, and to be obliged always to explain who he was. It was
clear that a servant was a thing quite necessary to a man who called
himself by a title, a servant not so much to attend upon him as to
answer for him, and be a sort of guarantee to the world. Now that he was
here in Edinburgh, he was not quite sure what to do with himself. It was
too early to do anything. He could not disturb old Milnathort at such an
hour. He must let the old man get to his office and read his letters
before he could descend upon him. So that on the whole Walter, though
sustained by the excitement of his new position, was altogether chilled
and not at all comfortable, feeling those early hours of grim daylight
hang very heavily on his hands. He went out after he had refreshed and
dressed--and strolled about the fine but foreign street. It looked quite
foreign to his inexperienced eyes. The Castle soared vaguely through
the grey mist; the irregular line of roofs and spires crowning the ridge
threw itself up vaguely against a darker grey behind. There was a river
of mist between him and that ridge, running deep in the hollow,
underneath the nearer bank, which was tufted with spectral bushes and
trees, and with still more spectral white statues glimmering through. On
the other side of the street, more cheerful and apparent, were the
jewellers' shops full of glistening pebbles and national ornaments.
Everybody knows that it is not these shops alone, but others of every
luxurious kind, that form the glory of Prince's Street. But Walter was a
stranger and foreigner; and in the morning mists the shining store of
cairngorms was the most cheerful sight that met his eye.

Mr. Milnathort's office was in a handsome square, with a garden in the
centre of it, and another statue holding possession of the garden. For
the first time since he left home, Walter felt a little thrill of his
new importance when he beheld the respectful curiosity produced among
the clerks by the statement of his name. They asked his lordship to step
in with an evident sensation. And for Walter himself to look into that
office where his mother had so strongly desired that he should find a
place, had the most curious effect. He felt for the moment as if he were
one of the serious young men peeping from beyond the wooden railing that
inclosed the office, at the fortunate youth whose circumstances were no
different from their own. He did not realise at that moment the
unfailing human complacency which would have come to his aid in such
circumstances, and persuaded him that the gifts of fortune had nothing
to do with real superiority. He thought of the possible reflections upon
himself of the other young fellows in their lowly estate as if he had
himself been making them. He was sorry for them all, for the contrast
they must draw, and the strange sense of human inequality that they must
feel. He was no better than they were--who could tell? perhaps not half
as good. He felt that to feel this was a due tribute from Lord Erradeen
in his good fortune to those who might have been Walter Methven's
fellow-clerks, but who had never had any chance of being Lord Erradeen.
And then he thought what a good thing it was that he had never written
that letter to Mr. Milnathort, offering himself for a desk in the
office. He had felt really guilty on the subject at the time. He had
felt that it was miserable of him to neglect the occasion thus put
before him of gaining a livelihood. Self-reproach, real and
unmistakable, had been in his mind; and yet what a good thing he had not
done it: and how little one knows what is going to happen! These were
very ordinary reflections, not showing much depth; but it must be
recollected that Walter was still in a sort of primary state of feeling,
and had not had time to reach a profounder level.

Mr. Milnathort made haste to receive him, coming out of his own room on
purpose, and giving him the warmest welcome.

"I might have thought you would come by the night train. You are not old
enough to dislike night travelling as I do; but I will take it ill, and
so will my sister, if you stay in an hotel, and your room ready for you
in our little place. I think you will be more comfortable with us,
though we have no grandeur to surround you with. My sister has a great
wish to make your acquaintance, my Lord Erradeen. She has just a
wonderful acquaintance with the family, and it was more through her than
any one that I knew just where to put my hand upon you, when the time
came."

"I did not like to disturb you so early," Walter said.

"Well, perhaps there is something in that. We are not very early birds:
and as a matter of fact, Alison did not expect you till about seven
o'clock at night. And here am I in the midst of my day's work. But I'll
tell you what I'll do for you. We'll go round to the club, and there
your young lordship will make acquaintance with somebody that can show
you something of Edinburgh. You have never been here before? It is a
great pity that there is an easterly haar, which is bad both for you and
the objects you are wanting to see. However, it is lifting, and we'll
get some luncheon, and then I will put you in the way. That is the best
thing I can do for you. Malcolm, you will send down all the documents
relative to his lordship's affairs to Moray Place, this afternoon; and
you can tell old Symington to be in attendance in case Lord Erradeen
should wish to see him. That is your cousin the late lord's body
servant. He is a man of great experience, and you might wish--; but all
that can be settled later on. If Drysdales should send over about that
case of theirs, ye will say, Malcolm, that I shall be here not later
than three in the afternoon; and if old Blairallan comes fyking, ye can
say I am giving the case my best attention; and if it's that big
north-country fellow about his manse and his augmentation----"

"I fear that I am unpardonable," said Walter, "in interfering with your
valuable time."

"Nothing of the sort. It is not every day that a Lord Erradeen comes
into his inheritance; and as there are, may be, things not over-cheerful
to tell you at night, we may as well make the best of it in the
morning," said the old lawyer. He got himself into his coat as he spoke,
slowly, not without an effort. The sun was struggling through the mist
as they went out again into the streets, and the mid-day gun from the
Castle helped for a moment to disperse the haar, and show the noble
cliff on which it rears its head aloft. Mr. Milnathort paused to look
with tender pride along the line--the houses and spires lifting out of
the clouds, the sunshine breaking through, the crown of St. Giles's
hovering like a visible sign of rank over the head of the throned city,
awakened in him that keen pleasure and elation in the beauty of his
native place which is nowhere more warmly felt than in Edinburgh. He
waved his hand towards the Old Town in triumph. "You may have seen a
great deal, but ye will never have seen anything finer than that," he
said.

"I have seen very little," said Walter; "but everybody has heard of
Edinburgh, so that it does not take one by surprise."

"Ay, that is very wisely said. If it took you by surprise, and you had
never heard of it before, the world would just go daft over it. However,
it is a drawback of a great reputation that ye never come near it with
your mind clear." Having said this the old gentleman dismissed the
subject with a wave of his hand, and said, in a different tone, "You
will be very curious about the family secrets you are coming into, Lord
Erradeen."

Walter laughed.

"I am coming to them with my mind clear," he said. "I know nothing about
them. But I don't believe much in family secrets. They belong to the
middle ages. Nowadays we have nothing to conceal."

Mr. Milnathort listened to this blasphemy with a countenance in which
displeasure struggled with that supreme sense that the rash young man
would soon know better, which disarms reproof. He shook his head.

"You may say we can conceal but little," he said, "which is true enough,
but not altogether true either. Courage is a fine thing, Lord Erradeen,
and I am always glad to see it; and if you have your imagination under
control, that will do ye still better service. In most cases it is not
only what we see, but what we think we are going to see, that daunts us.
Keep you your head cool, that is your best defence in all emergencies.
It is better to be too bold than not to be bold enough, notwithstanding
the poet's warning to yon warrior-maid of his."

These last words made Walter stare, for he was not very learned in
poetry at the best, and was totally unprepared to hear Spenser from the
lips of the old Scottish lawyer. He was silent for a little in mere
perplexity, and then he said, with a laugh--

"You speak of danger as if we were on the eve of a battle. Are there
giants to encounter or magicians? One would think we were living in the
dark ages," Walter cried with a little impatience.

Mr. Milnathort said nothing more. He led the young man into one of the
great stone palaces which form the line of Prince's Street, and which
was then the seat of the old original club of Edinburgh society. Here
Walter found himself in the midst of a collection of men with marked and
individual faces, each one of whom ought to be somebody, he thought.
Many of them were bound about the throat with white ties, like
clergymen, but they did not belong to that profession. It gave the
young man a sense of his own importance, which generally deserted him in
Mr. Milnathort's presence, and of which he felt himself to stand in
need, to perceive that he excited a great deal of interest among these
grave and potent signors. There was a certain desire visible to make his
acquaintance and to ascertain his political opinions, of which Walter
was scarcely aware as yet whether he had any. It was suggested at once
that he should be put up for the club, and invitations to dinner began
to be showered upon him. He was stopped short in his replies to those
cordial beginnings of acquaintance by Mr. Milnathort, who calmly assumed
the guidance of his movements. "Lord Erradeen," he said, "is on his way
West. Business will not permit him to tarry at this moment. We hope he
will be back ere long, and perhaps stay a while in Edinburgh, and see
what is to be seen in the way of society." This summary way of taking
all control of his own movements from him astounded Walter so much that
he merely stared at his old tyrant or vizier, and in his confusion of
surprise and anger did not feel capable of saying anything, which, after
all, was the most dignified way; for, he said to himself, it was not
necessary to yield implicit obedience even if he refrained from open
protest upon these encroachments on his liberty. In the mean time it was
evident that the old lawyer did not intend him to have any liberty at
all. He produced out of the recesses of the club library a beaming
little man in spectacles, to whom he committed the charge of the young
stranger.

"Mr. Bannatyne," he said, "knows Edinburgh as well as I know my
chambers, and he will just take you round what is most worth seeing."

When Walter attempted to escape with a civil regret to give his new
acquaintance trouble he was put down by both with eagerness.

"The Old Town is just the breath of my nostrils," said the little
antiquary.

"It cannot be said that it's a fragrant breath," said old Milnathort;
"but since that is so, Lord Erradeen, you would not deprive our friend
of such a pleasure: and we'll look for you by five or six at Moray
Place, or earlier if you weary, for it's soon dark at this time of the
year."

To find himself thus arrested in the first day of his emancipation and
put into the hands of a conductor was so annoying yet so comic that
Walter's resentment evaporated in the ludicrous nature of the situation
and his consciousness that otherwise he would not know what to do with
himself. But sight-seeing requires a warmer inspiration than this, and
even the amusement of beholding his companion's enthusiasm over all the
dark entries and worn-out inscriptions was not enough to keep Walter's
interest alive. His own life at this moment was so much more interesting
than anything else, so much more important than those relics of a past
which had gone away altogether out of mortal ken. When the blood is at
high pressure in our veins, and the future lying all before us, it is
very difficult to turn back, and force our eager eyes into contemplation
of scenes with which we ourselves have little or no connection. The
antiquary, however, was not to be baulked. He looked at his young
companion with his head on one side like a critical bird. "You are
paying no attention to me," he said half pathetically; "but 'cod, man (I
beg your pardon, my lord!), ye _shall_ be interested before I'm done."
With this threat he hurried Walter along to the noisiest and most
squalid part of that noble but miserable street which is the pride of
Edinburgh, and stopped short before a small but deep doorway, entering
from a short flight of outside stairs. The door was black with age and
neglect, and showed a sort of black cave within, out of which all kind
of dingy figures were fluttering. The aspect of the muddy stairs and
ragged wayfarers was miserable enough, but the mouldings of the lintel,
and the spiral staircase half visible at one side, were of a grim
antiquity, and so was the lofty tenement above, with its many rows of
windows and high-stepped gable.

"Now just look here," said Mr. Bannatyne, "these arms will tell their
own story."

There was a projecting boss of rude, half-obliterated carving on the
door.

"I cannot make head nor tail of it," said the young man; his patience
was beginning to give way.

"Lord Erradeen," cried the other with enthusiasm, "this is worth your
fattest farm; it is of more interest than half your inheritance; it is
as historical as Holyrood. You are just awfully insensible, you young
men, and think as little of the relics that gave you your consequences
in the world--!" He paused a little in the fervour of his indignation,
then added--"But there are allowances to be made for you as you were
bred in England, and perhaps are little acquainted--My lord, this is
Me'even's Close, bearing the name even now in its decay. It was my Lord
Methven's lodging in the old time. Bless me! can your young eyes not
read the motto that many people have found so significant? Look here,"
cried Walter's cicerone, tracing with his stick the half-effaced
letters, "Baithe Sune and Syne."

Young Lord Erradeen began, as was natural, to feel ashamed of himself.
He felt a pang of discomfort too, for this certainly bore no resemblance
to the trim piece of modern Latin about the conquering power of virtue
which was on his father's seal. The old possibility that he might turn
out an impostor after all gleamed across his mind. "Does this belong to
me?" he added with some eagerness, to veil these other and less easy
sentiments.

"I know nothing about that," said Mr. Bannatyne with a slight tone of
contempt. "But it was the Lord of Methven's lodging in the days when
Scots lords lived in the Canongate of Edinburgh." Then he added, "There
is a fine mantelpiece up-stairs which you had better see. Oh nobody will
have any objection, a silver key opens every door hereabout. If it
should happen to be yours, my lord, and I were you," said the eager
little man, "I would clear out the whole clanjamfry and have it
thoroughly cleaned, and make a museum of the place. You would pick up
many a curious bit as the auld houses go down. This way, to the right,
and mind the hole in the wall. The doors are all carved, if you can see
them for the dirt, and you'll not often see a handsomer room."

It was confusing at first to emerge out of the gloom of the stairs into
the light of the great room, with its row of windows guiltless of either
blind or curtain, which was in possession of a group of ragged children,
squatting about in front of the deep, old-fashioned chimney, over which
a series of elaborate carvings rose to the roof. The room had once been
panelled, but half of the woodwork had been dragged down, and the rest
was in a deplorable state. The contrast of the squalor and wretchedness
about him, with the framework of the ancient, half-ruined grandeur, at
once excited and distressed Walter. There was a bed, or rather a heap of
something covered with the bright patches of an old quilt, in one
corner, in another an old corner cupboard fixed into the wall, a rickety
table and two chairs in the middle of the room. The solemn, unsheltered
windows, like so many hollow, staring eyes, gazed out through the cold
veil of the mist upon the many windows of an equally tall house on the
other side of the street, the view being broken by a projecting pole
thrust forth from the middle one, upon which some dingy clothes were
hanging to dry. The children hung together, getting behind the biggest
of them, a ragged, handsome girl, with wild, elf locks, who confronted
the visitors with an air of defiance. The flooring was broken in many
places, and dirty beyond description. Walter felt it intolerable to be
here, to breathe the stifling atmosphere, to contemplate this hideous
form of decay. He thought some one was looking at him from behind the
torn panels. "This is horrible," he said. "I hope I have nothing to do
with it." Disgust and a shivering, visionary dread was in his voice.

"Your race has had plenty to do with it," said the antiquary. "It was
here, they say, that the warlock-lord played most of his pliskies. It
was his 'warm study of deals' like that they made for John Knox on the
other side of the street. These walls have seen strange sights: and if
you believe in witchcraft, as one of your name ought----"

"Why should one of my name believe in witchcraft? It appears," he said,
with petulance, "that I know very little about my name."

"So I should have said," said the antiquary, dryly. "But no doubt you
have heard of your great ancestor, the warlock-lord? I am not saying
that I admire the character in the abstract; but an ancestor like that
is fine for a family. He was mixed up in all the doings of the time, and
he made his own out of every one of them. And then he's a grand
historical problem to the present day, which is no small distinction.
You never heard of that? Oh, my lord, that's just not possible! He was
the one whose death was never proved nor nothing about him, where he was
buried, or the nature of his end, or if he ever came to an end at all;
his son would never take the title, and forbade _his_ son to do it: but
by the time you have got to the second generation you are not minding so
much. I noticed that the late lord would never enter into conversation
on the subject. The family has always been touchy about it. It was the
most complete disappearance I can recollect hearing of. Most historical
puzzles clear themselves up in time: but this never was cleared up. Of
course it has given rise to legends. You will perhaps be more interested
in the family legends, Lord Erradeen?"

"Not at all," said Walter, abruptly. "I have told you I know very little
about the family. What is it we came to see?--not this wretched place
which makes me sick. The past should carry off its shell with it, and
not leave these old clothes to rot here."

"Oh!" cried little Mr. Bannatyne, with a shudder. "I never suspected I
was bringing in an iconoclast. That mantelpiece is a grand work of art,
Lord Erradeen. Look at that serpent twisted about among the
drapery--you'll not see such work now; and the ermine on that mantle
just stands out in every hair, for all the grime and the smoke. It is
the legend beneath the shield that is most interesting in the point of
view of the family. It's a sort of rhyming slogan, or rather it's an
addition to the old slogan, 'Live, Me'even,' which everybody knows."

Walter felt a mingled attraction and repulsion which held him there
undecided in front of the great old fireplace, like Hercules or any
other hero between the symbolical good and evil. He had a great
curiosity to know what all this meant mingled with an angry
disinclination impossible to put into words. Mr. Bannatyne, who of
course knew nothing of what was going on in his mind, took upon himself
the congenial task of tracing the inscription out. It was doggerel, bad
enough to satisfy every aspiration of an antiquary. It was as follows:--

    "Né fleyt atte Helle, né fond for Heeven,
                        Live, Me'even."

"You will see how it fits in with the other motto," cried the
enthusiast. "'Baithe Sune and Syne,' which has a grand kind of
indifference to time and all its changes that just delights me. And the
other has the same sentiment, 'Neither frightened for hell nor keen
about heaven.' It is the height of impiety," he said, with a subdued
chuckle; "but that's not inappropriate--it's far from inappropriate; it
is just, in fact, what might have been expected. The warlock lord----"

"I hope you won't think me ungrateful," cried Walter, "but I don't think
I want to know any more about that old ruffian. There is something in
the place that oppresses me." He took out from his pocket a handful of
coins. (It was with the pleasure of novelty that he shook them together,
gold and silver in one shining heap, and threw half a dozen of them to
the little group before the fire.) "For heaven's sake let us get out of
this!" he said, nervously. He could not have explained the sentiment of
horror, almost of fear, that was in his mind. "If it is mine," he said,
as they went down the spiral stair, groping against the black humid
wall, "I shall pull it down and let in some air and clear the filth
away."

"God bless me!" cried the antiquary in horror and distress, "you will
never do that. The finest street in Christendom, and one of the best
houses! No, no, Lord Erradeen, you will never do that!"

When Mr. Bannatyne got back to the club, he expressed an opinion of Lord
Erradeen, which we are glad to believe further experience induced him to
modify. He declared that old Bob Milnathort had given him such a handful
as he had not undertaken for years. "Just a young Cockney!" he said, "a
stupid Englishman! with no more understanding of history, or even of the
share his own race has had in it, than that collie dog--indeed, Yarrow
is far more intelligent, and a brute that is conscious of a fine
descent. I am not saying that there are not fine lads among some of
those English-bred young men, and some that have the sense to like
old-fashioned things. But this young fellow is just a Cockney, he is
just a young cynic. Pull down the house, said he? Spoil the first street
in Europe! We'll see what the Town Council--not to say the Woods and
Forests--will say to that, my young man! And I hope I have Bailie Brown
under my thumb!" the enraged antiquary cried.

Meantime Walter made his way through the dark streets in a tremor of
excitement and dislike of which he could give no explanation to himself.
Why should the old house have affected him so strongly! There was no
reason for it that he knew. Perhaps there was something in the
suddenness of the transition from the comfortable English prose of
Sloebury to all these old world scenes and suggestions which had a
disenchanting effect upon him. He had not been aware that he was more
matter of fact than another, less likely to be affected by romance and
historical associations. But so it had turned out. The grimy squalor of
the place, the bad atmosphere, the odious associations, had either
destroyed for him all the more attractive prejudices of long family
descent, and a name which had descended through many generations--or
else, something more subtle still, some internal influence, had
communicated that loathing and sickness of the heart. Which was it? He
could not tell. He said to himself, with a sort of scorn at himself,
that probably the bourgeois atmosphere of Sloebury had made him
incapable of those imaginative flights for which the highest and the
lowest classes have a mutual aptitude. The atmosphere of comfort and
respectability was against it. This idea rather exasperated him, and he
dwelt upon it with a natural perversity because he hated to identify
himself as one of that stolid middle class which is above or beneath
fanciful impulses. Then he began to wonder whether all this might not be
part of a deep-laid scheme on the part of old Milnathort to get him,
Walter, under his power. No doubt it was arranged that he should be
brought to that intolerable place, and all the spells of the past called
forth to subdue him by his imagination if never through his intellect.
What did they take him for? He was no credulous Celt, but a sober-minded
Englishman, not likely to let his imagination run away with him, or to
be led by the nose by any _diablerie_, however skilful. They might make
up their minds to it, that their wiles of this kind would meet with no
success. Walter was by no means sure who he meant by _they_, or why they
should endeavour to get him into their power; but he wanted something to
find fault with--some way of shaking off the burden of a mental weight
which he did not understand, which filled him with discomfort and new
sensations which he could not explain. He could almost have supposed
(had he believed in mesmerism, according to the description given of it
in fiction--) that he was under some mesmeric influence, and that some
expert, some adept, was trying to decoy him within some fatal circle of
impression. But he set his teeth and all his power of resistance against
it. They should not find him an easy prey.




CHAPTER VIII.


The drawing-room in Moray Place seemed in the partial gloom very large
and lofty. It must be remembered that Walter was accustomed only to the
comparatively small rooms of an English country town where there was
nobody who was very rich--and the solid, tall Edinburgh houses were
imposing to him. There was no light but that which came from a blazing
fire, and which threw an irregular ruddy illumination upon everything,
but no distinct vision. He saw the tall windows indefinitely draped, and
looking not unlike three colossal women in abundant vague robes standing
against the wall. In a smaller room behind, which opened from this, the
firelight was still brighter, but still only partially lit up the
darkness. It showed, however, a table placed near the fire, and glowing
with bright reflections from its silver and china; and just beyond that,
out of the depths of what looked like an elongated easy-chair, a piece
of whiteness, which was a female countenance. Walter, confused at his
entrance, made out after a moment that it was a lady, half reclining on
a sort of invalid _chaise longue_, who raised herself slightly to
receive him, with a flicker of a pair of white, attenuated hands. "You
are very welcome, Lord Erradeen," she said, in a sweet, feeble voice.
"Will you excuse my rising--for I'm a great invalid--and come and sit
down here beside me? I have been looking for you this half-hour past."
The hand which she held out to him was so thin that he scarcely felt its
light pressure. "If you have no objection," said Miss Milnathort, "we
will do with the firelight for a little longer. It is my favourite
light. My brother sent me word I was to expect you, and after your cold
walk you will be glad of a cup of tea." She did not pause for any reply,
but went on, drawing the table towards her, and arranging everything
with the skill of an accustomed hand. "I am just a cripple creature,"
she said. "I have had to learn to serve myself in this way, and Robert
is extraordinarily thoughtful. There is not a mechanical convenience
invented but I have it before it is well out of the brain that devised
it; and that is how I get on so well with no backbone to speak of. All
this is quite new to you," she said, quickly shaking off one subject and
taking up another, with a little swift movement of her head.

"Do you mean--Edinburgh, or----"

"I mean everything," said the lady. "Edinburgh will be just a bit of
scenery in the drama that is opening upon you, and here am I just
another tableau. I can see it all myself with your young eyes. You can
scarcely tell if it is real."

"That is true enough," said Walter, "and the scenery all turns upon the
plot so far: which is what it does not always do upon the stage."

"Ay!" said Miss Milnathort, with a tone of surprise, "and how may that
be? I don't see any particular significance in Holyrood. It is where all
you English strangers go, as if Edinburgh had no meaning but Queen
Mary."

"We did not go to Holyrood. We went to Lord Methven's Lodging, as I hear
it is called: which was highly appropriate."

"Dear me," said the lady, "do you mean to tell me that John Bannatyne
had that sense in him? I will remember that the next time Robert calls
him an auld foozle. And so you saw the lodging of Methven? I have never
seen it myself. Did it not make your heart sick to see all the poverty
and misery in that awful street? Oh yes, I'm told it's a grand street:
but I never have the heart to go into it. I think the place should die
with the age that gave it birth."

This was a sentiment so entirely unlike what Walter had expected to
hear, that for the moment it took from him all power of reply. "That
would be hard upon antiquity," he said at length, "and I don't know what
the artists would say, or our friend Mr. Bannatyne."

"He would have me burnt for a witch," the invalid said with a sweet
little laugh; and then she added, "Ah, it is very well to talk about
art; but there was great sense in that saying of the old Reformers,
'Ding down the nest, and the crows will flee away.'"

"I expected," said Walter, "to find you full of reverence for the past,
and faith in mysteries and family secrets, and--how can I tell?--ghosts
perhaps." He laughed, but the invalid did not echo his laugh. And this
brought a little chill and check to his satisfaction. The sense that one
has suddenly struck a jarring note is highly uncomfortable when one is
young. Walter put back his chair a little, not reflecting that the
firelight revealed very little of his sudden blush.

"I have had no experience in what you call ghosts," she said, gravely.
"I cannot, to tell the truth, see any argument against them, except just
that we don't see them; and I think that's a pity, for my part."

To this, as it was a view of the subject equally new to him, Walter made
no reply.

"Take you care, Lord Erradeen," she resumed hastily, "not to let
yourself be persuaded to adopt that sort of nomenclature." There was a
touch of Scotch in her accent that naturalised the long word, and made
it quite in keeping. "Conclude nothing to be a ghost till you cannot
account for it in any other way. There are many things that are far more
surprising," she said; then, shaking off the subject once more with that
little movement of her head, "You are not taking your tea. You must have
had a tiring day after travelling all night. That is one of the modern
fashions I cannot make up my mind to. They tell me the railway is not
so wearying as the long coach journeys we used to make in the old time."

"But you--can scarcely remember the old coach journeys? Why, my
mother----"

"Very likely I am older than your mother; and I rarely budge out of this
corner. I have never seen your mother, but I remember Captain Methven
long long ago, who was not unlike the general outline of you, so far as
I can make out. When the light comes you will see I am an old woman. It
is just possible that this is why I am so fond of the firelight," she
said with a laugh; "for I'm really very young though I was born long
ago. Robert and me, we remember all our games and plays in a way that
people that have had children of their own never do. We are just boy and
girl still, and I've known us, after a long talk, forget ourselves
altogether, and talk of papa and mamma!" She clapped her hands together
at this, and went into a peal of genuine laughter, such as is always
infectious. Walter laughed too, but in a half-embarrassed, half-unreal
way. All was so strange to him, and this curious introduction into a
half-seen, uncomprehended world the most curious of all.

"I would like to know a little about yourself," she resumed after a
moment. "You were not in the secret that it was you who were the kin? It
was strange your father should have left you in the dark."

"I can't remember my father," said Walter, hastily.

"That makes little difference; but you were always a strange family.
Now you, Robert tells me, you're not so very much of an Erradeen--you
take after your mother's side. And I'm very very glad to hear it. It
will perhaps be you, if you have the courage, that will put a stop
to--many things. There are old rhymes upon that subject, but you will
put little faith in old rhymes; I none at all. I believe they are just
made up long after the occasion, just for the sake of the fun, or
perhaps because some one is pleased with himself to have found a rhyme.
Now that one that they tell me is in the Canongate--that about 'Live,
Me'even--'"

"I thought you said you didn't know it?"

"I have never seen it; but you don't suppose I am ignorant of the
subject, Lord Erradeen? Do you know I have been here stretched out in my
chair these thirty years? and what else could I give my attention to,
considering all things? Well, I do not believe in that. Oh, it's far too
pat! When a thing is true it is not just so terribly in keeping. I
believe it was made up by somebody that knew the story just as we do;
probably a hundred years or more after the event."

Walter did not say that he was quite unacquainted with the event. His
interest perhaps, though he was not aware of it, was a little less warm
since he knew that Miss Milnathort was his mother's contemporary rather
than his own; but he had come to the conclusion that it was better not
to ask any direct questions. The light had faded much, and was now
nothing more than a steady red glow in place of the leaping and blazing
of the flames. He scarcely saw his entertainer at all. There were two
spots of brightness which moved occasionally, and which represented her
face and the hands which she had clasped together (when they were not
flickering about in incessant gesture) in her lap. But there was
something altogether quaint and strange in the situation. It did not
irritate him as the men had done. And then she had the good sense to
agree with him in some respects, though the _mélange_ of opinions in her
was remarkable, and he did not understand what she would be at. There
was an interval of quiet in which neither of them said anything, and
then a large step was audible coming slowly up-stairs, and through the
other drawing room.

"Here is Robert," the invalid said with a smile in her voice. It was
nothing but a tall shadow that appeared, looming huge in the ruddy
light.

"Have you got Lord Erradeen with you, Alison? and how are you and he
getting on together?" said old Milnathort's voice.

Walter rose hastily to his feet with a feeling that other elements less
agreeable were at once introduced, and that his pride was affronted by
being discussed in this easy manner over his head.

"We are getting on fine, Robert. He is just as agreeable as you say, and
I have great hopes will be the man. But you are late, and it will soon
be time for dinner. I would advise you to show our young gentleman to
his room, and see that he's comfortable. And after dinner, when you
have had your good meal, we'll have it all out with him."

"I am thinking, Alison, that there is a good deal we must go over that
will be best between him and me."

"That must be as you please, Robert, my man," said the lady, and Walter
felt like a small child who is being discussed over his head by grown-up
persons, whom he feels to be his natural enemies. He rose willingly, yet
with unconscious offence, and followed his host to his room, inwardly
indignant with himself for having thus impaired his own liberty by
forsaking his inn. The room however was luxuriously comfortable, shining
with firelight, and a grave and respectable servant in mourning, was
arranging his evening clothes upon the bed.

"This is Symington," said Mr. Milnathort, "he was your late
cousin's body-servant. The late Lord Erradeen gave him a very warm
recommendation. There might be things perhaps in which he would be of
use."

"Thanks," said Walter, impulsively. "I have a man coming. I am afraid
the recommendation is a little too late."

This unfortunately was not true; but the young man felt that to allow
himself to be saddled with a sort of governor in the shape of the late
lord's servant was more than could be required of him; and that he must
assert himself before it was too late.

"You will settle that at your pleasure, my lord," said old Milnathort,
and he went away shutting the door carefully, his steady, slow step
echoing along the passage. The man was not apparently in the least
daunted by Walter's irritation. He went on mechanically, lightly
brushing out a crease, and unfolding the coat with that affectionate
care which a good servant bestows upon good clothes. Walter longed to
have brought his old coat with him that everything should not have been
so distressingly new.

"That will do," he said, "that will do. It is a pity to give you so much
trouble when, as I tell you, I have another man engaged."

"It is no trouble, my lord; it is a pleasure. I came out of attachment
to the family. I've been many years about my late lord. And however ye
may remind yourself that you are but a servant, and service is no
heritage, yet it's not easy to keep yourself from becoming attached."

"My good man," said Walter, half impatient, half touched, "you never saw
me in your life before. I can't see how you can have any attachment to
me."

Symington had a long face, with a somewhat lugubrious expression,
contradicted by the twinkle of a pair of humorous, deep-set eyes. He
gave a glance up at Walter from where he stood fondling the lappels of
the new coat.

"There are many kinds of attachments, my lord," he said oracularly;
"some to the person and some to the race. For a number of years past I
have, so to speak, just identified myself with the Erradeens. It's not
common in England, so far as I can hear, but it's just our old Scots
way. I will take no other service. So, being free, if your lordship
pleases, I will just look after your lordship's things till the other
man comes."

Walter perceived in a moment by the way Symington said these words that
he had no faith whatever in the other man. He submitted accordingly to
the ministrations of the family retainer, with a great deal of his old
impatience, tempered by a sense of the humour of the situation. It
seemed that he was never to have any control over himself. He had barely
escaped from the tutelage of home when he fell into this other which was
much more rigid. "Poor mother!" he said to himself, with an affectionate
recollection of her many cares, her anxious watchfulness; and laughed to
himself at the thought that she was being avenged.

Mr. Milnathort's table was handsome and liberal; the meal even too
abundant for the solitary pair who sat alone at a corner of the large
table, amid a blaze of light. Miss Milnathort did not appear.

"She never comes down. She has never sat down at table since she had her
accident, and that is thirty years since."

There was something in Mr. Milnathort's tone as he said this that made
Walter believe that her accident too had something to do with the
family. Everything tended towards that, or sprang from it. Had he been
to the manner born, this would no doubt have seemed to him natural
enough; but as it was he could not keep himself from the idea either
that he was being laughed at, or that some design was hidden beneath
this constant reference. The dinner, however, went off quietly. It was
impossible to discuss anything of a private character in the presence of
Milnathort's serious butler, and of the doubly grave apparition of
Symington, who helped the other to wait.

Walter had never dined so solemnly before. It must be added, however,
that he had seldom dined so well. It was a pity that he was so little
knowing in this particular. Mr. Milnathort encouraged him through the
repast by judicious words of advice and recommendation. He was very
genial and expansive at this most generous moment of the day. Fond of
good fare himself he liked to communicate and recommend it, and Walter's
appetite was excellent, if perhaps his taste was uncultivated. The two
noiseless attendants circulating about the table served them with a
gravity in perfect keeping with the importance of the event, which was
to the old lawyer the most interesting of the day.

When they were left alone finally, the aspect of affairs changed a
little. Mr. Milnathort cleared his throat, and laid aside his napkin. He
said--

"We must not forget, Lord Erradeen, that we have a great deal of
business to get through. But you have had a fatiguing day, and probably
very little sleep last night"--

"I slept very well, I assure you," Walter replied cheerfully.

"Ay, ay, you are young," said Mr. Milnathort, with a half-sigh. "Still
all the financial statements, and to give you a just view of all that's
coming to you, will take time. With your permission we'll keep that till
to-morrow. But there's just a thing or two--. Lord save us!" he cried
suddenly, "you're not the kind of person for this. There is many a one I
know that would have liked it all the better--till they knew--for what's
attached to it. I thought as much when I first set eyes upon you. This
will be one that will not take it all for gospel, I said to myself--one
that will set up his own judgment, and demand the reason why."

Walter, a little uncertain at first how to take this, ended by being
gratified with such an estimate of himself. It showed, he felt, more
perception than he had looked for, and he answered, with a little
complacency, "I hope you think that is the right way of approaching a
new subject."

"I am not unbiased myself," said the lawyer, "and I have had to do with
it all my life. There are conditions connected with your inheritance,
Lord Erradeen, that may seem out of the way to a stranger. If you had
succeeded in the way of nature, as your father's son, they would not
have been new to you, and you would have been prepared. In that way it
is hard upon you. There was one of your ancestors that laid certain
conditions, as I was saying, upon every heir. He was one that had, as
you may say, a good right to do that, or whatever else he pleased,
seeing he was the making of the family. In old days it was no more than
a bit small highland lairdship. It was he that gave it consequence; but
he has held a heavy hand upon his successors ever since."

"Would it be he by any chance of whom Mr. Bannatyne was discoursing to
me," said Walter, "under the title of the warlock-lord?"

"Ah! John Bannatyne took that upon him?" cried Mr. Milnathort with
vivacity. His eyes gleamed from under his deep-set brows. "The less a
man knows the more ready he is to instruct the world: but I never
thought he would take that upon him. So you see, as I was saying, there
are certain formalities to go through. It is understood that once a
year, wherever he may be, Lord Erradeen should pass, say a week, say two
or three days, in the old castle of Kinloch Houran, which is the old
seat of the family, the original of the Methven race."

Walter had been listening with some anxiety. He drew a long breath as
Mr. Milnathort came to a pause. "Is that all?" he cried, with a voice of
relief. Then he laughed. "I was winding myself up to something heroic,
but if it is only a periodical retirement to an old castle--to think, I
suppose, upon one's sins and examine one's conscience----"

"Something very like that," said the old man, somewhat grimly.

"Well! It might be a great inconvenience; but there is nothing very
appalling in the prospect, if that is all."

"It is all, Lord Erradeen--if ye except what passes there, a thing that
is your own concern, and that I have never pried into for my part. And
just this beside, that you are expected there at once and without
delay."

"Expected--at once and without delay." Walter grew red with anger at
these peremptory words. "This sounds a little arbitrary," he said.
"Expected? by whom? and to what purpose? I don't understand----"

"Nor do I, my young lord. But it's so in the documents, and so has it
been with every Lord of Erradeen up to this period. It is the first
thing to be done. Before you come into enjoyment of anything, or take
your place in the country, there is this visit--if you like to call it a
visit: this--sojourn: not a long one, at least, you may be thankful--to
be made----"

"To what purpose?" Walter repeated, almost mechanically. He could not,
himself, understand the sudden tempest of resistance, of anger, of alarm
that got up within him. "There is reason in everything," he said,
growing pale. "What is it for? What am I to do?"

"Lord Erradeen, a minute since you said, was that all? And now you
change colour: you ask why, and wherefore--"

Walter made a great effort to regain command of himself. "It is
inconsistent, I allow," he said. "Somehow, the order to go now is
irritating and unpleasant. I suppose it's simple enough, a piece of
tyranny such as people seem to think they may indulge in after they're
dead. But it is abominably arbitrary and tyrannical. What good does the
old beggar think----"

"Hold your peace," cried Mr. Milnathort, with a little trepidation. "We
have no right to call names, and I would not like it to be thought----"
Here he paused with a sort of uneasy smile, and added, "I am speaking
nonsense," with a vague glance about him. "I think we might join my
sister up-stairs; and, as she knows just as much as I do, or, maybe,
more, you can speak as freely as you please before her--oh, quite
freely. But, my dear young lord, call no names!" cried Mr. Milnathort.
He got up hurriedly, leaving his wine which he had just filled out, a
demonstration of sincerity which made a great impression upon Walter:
and threw open the door. "Putting off the business details till
to-morrow, I know nothing else that we cannot discuss before Alison," he
said.

Walter was much startled when he went back to the inner drawing-room and
found it lighted. Miss Milnathort did not employ any of those devices by
which light is softened to suit the exigencies of beauty which has
passed its prime. The light (alas for the prejudices of the æsthetic
reader) was gas; and, though it was slightly disguised by means of opal
glass, it still poured down in a brilliant flood, and the little room
was almost as light as day. She lay in her _chaise longue_ placed under
this illumination. Her face was preternaturally young, almost childish,
small, and full of colour, her hair snow-white. She seemed to have been
exempted from the weight of years, in compensation, perhaps, for other
sufferings; her skin was smooth and unwrinkled, her eyes full of dewy
brightness like those of a girl. Her dress, so far as it was visible,
was white, made of cashmere or some other woollen material, solid and
warm, but with lace at the neck, and pretty ribbons breaking the
monotony of the tint. She looked like a girl dressed for some simple
party, who had lain there waiting for the little festivity to begin, for
no one could imagine how many years. Her hands were soft and round and
young like her face. The wind had not been allowed to visit her cheek
too roughly for a lifetime. What had happened before the event which she
and her brother had both referred to as her "accident" belonged to a
period which had evidently nothing to do with the present. Walter saw at
a glance that every possible convenience which could be invented for an
invalid surrounded her. She had a set of bookshelves at one side with
vacant spaces where she could place the book she was reading. Tables
that wheeled towards her at a touch, with needlework, with knitting,
with drawing materials, were arranged within reach. One of these made
into a desk and put itself across her couch by another adaptation. It
was evident that the tenderest affection and care had made this prison
of hers into a sort of museum of every ingenuity that had ever been
called to the help of the suffering. She lay, or rather sat, for that
was her general position, with an air of pleasant expectation on her
face, and received them with smiles and hands held out. "Come away,
come away," she said in her soft Scotch. "I have been wearying for you."
Walter thought there was something of age in her voice, but that might
have been only the Scotch, and the unusual form of her salutation. She
pointed out a chair to him carefully placed for her convenience in
seeing and hearing. "Come and tell me what you think about it all," she
said.

"I have not heard much," said Walter, "to think about: except that I am
to go away directly, which does not please me at all, Miss Milnathort."

"Oh, you will come back, you will come back," she said.

"I hope so: but the reason why I should go doesn't seem very plain. What
would happen, I wonder, if I didn't?" Walter said, lightly. He was
surprised to see how much effect was produced upon his companions by
this very simple utterance. Miss Milnathort put her hands together, as
if to clasp them in triumph. Her brother stood looking down upon the
others, with his back to the light, and an air of alarmed displeasure.

"One result would be that certain of the lands would pass to the next
heir," he said; "besides, perhaps--other penalties: that I would not
incur, Lord Erradeen, if I were you."

"What penalties? But do you think at this time of day," said Walter,
"that ridiculous conditions of this kind that can mean nothing could
really be upheld by the law--now that bequests of all kinds are being
interfered with, and even charities?"

"Robert, that is true. There was the Melville mortification that you had
so much trouble about, and that was a charity. How much more, as young
Lord Erradeen is saying, when it is just entirely out of reason."

"You should hold your peace on legal subjects, Alison. What can you know
about them? I disapprove of all interference with the will of a
testator, Lord Erradeen. I hold it to be against the law, and against
that honour and honesty that we owe to the dead as well as the living.
But there has always been a license allowed in respect to charities. So
far as they are intended to be for the good of the poor, we have a right
to see that the testator's meaning is carried out, even if it be
contrary to his stipulations. But in a private case there is no such
latitude. And you must always respect the testator's meaning, which is
very clear in this case, as even you will allow, Alison."

"Ay, clear enough," cried the young-old lady, shaking her white head.
"But I'm on your side, Lord Erradeen. I would just let them try their
worst, and see what would come of it, if, instead of a lame woman, I was
a young man, lively and strong like you."

"The question is," said Walter, "for I have become prudent since I have
had property--whether for such an insignificant affair it is worth while
losing a substantial advantage, as Mr. Milnathort says? And then,
perhaps, a new man like myself, coming into an antiquated routine, there
would be a sort of discourtesy, a want of politeness--" He laughed. "One
ought, I suppose, to be on one's best behaviour in such circumstances,"
he said.

Miss Milnathort's countenance fell a little. She did not make any reply;
but she had been listening with an air so eager and full of vivacity,
anxious to speak, that the young man at once perceived the
disappointment in her expressive little face. He said quickly--

"That does not please you? What would you have me to do?" with an
involuntary sense that she had a right to an opinion.

Mr. Milnathort at this moment sat heavily down on the other side, giving
great emphasis to his interruption by the sound of his chair drawn
forward, a sound which she protested against with a sudden contraction
of her forehead, putting up a delicate hand.

"I beg your pardon, my dear, for making a noise. You must not consult
Alison, Lord Erradeen; she is prejudiced on one side--and I--perhaps I
am, if not prejudiced, yet biased, on the other. You must act on your
own instinct, which, as far as I can judge, is a just one. It would be a
great incivility, as you say, for a far-away collateral, that is really
no more than a stranger, to set himself against the traditions of a
house."

Walter did not much like to hear himself described as a far-away
collateral. It sounded like a term of reproach, and as he did not
choose to say anything more on this matter, he made the best change of
subject he could.

"I wonder," he said, "what would happen with any of the fantastic old
feudal tenures if a new heir, a new man like myself, should simply
refuse to fulfil them."

"Mostly they take a pride and a pleasure in fulfilling them," said the
old lawyer.

"But suppose," cried Walter, "for the sake of argument, that a new Duke
of Marlborough should say, 'What rubbish! Why should I send that
obsolete old flag to Windsor?' That is a modern instance; or
suppose----"

"Just that," cried Miss Milnathort, striking in with a flicker of her
pretty hands. "Suppose young Glenearn should refuse when he comes of age
to hear a word about that secret cha'mer----"

"What would happen?" said Walter, with a laugh of profane and irreverent
youth.

Mr. Milnathort rose to his full height; he pushed back his chair with an
indignant movement.

"You may as well ask me," he said, "what would happen if the pillars of
the earth should give way. It is a thing that cannot be, at least till
the end of all things is at hand. I will ring for prayers, Alison. My
Lord Erradeen is young; he knows little; but this kind of profane talk
is not to be justified from you and me."

Then the bell was rung; the servants came trooping up-stairs, and
Symington gave Walter a sidelong look as he took his seat behind their
backs. It seemed to assert a demure claim of proprietorship, along with
a total want of faith in the "other man." Young Lord Erradeen found that
it was all he could do to restrain an irreverent laugh. The position was
so comic, that his original sense of angry resistance disappeared before
it. He was going off against his will to pass through a mysterious
ordeal in an old ruined house, under charge of a servant whom he did not
want, and in obedience to a stipulation which he disowned. He was not
half so free an agent as he had been when he was poor Walter Methven,
knocking about the streets of Sloebury and doing much what he liked,
though he thought himself in bondage. Bondage! he did not know in the
old days what the word would mean.




CHAPTER IX.


The day on which Walter set out for Kinloch Houran was fine and bright,
the sky very clear, the sun shining, the hills standing out against the
blue, and every line of the tall trees clearly marked upon the
transparent atmosphere. It was not till two days after the conversation
above recorded--for there had been much to explain, and Walter was so
little acquainted with business that instructions of various kinds were
necessary. Miss Milnathort was visible much earlier than usual on the
morning of his departure, and he was admitted to see her. She was paler
than before, and her little soft face was full of agitation; the corners
of her mouth turned down, and her upper lip, which was a trifle too
long, quivering. This added rather than took away from her appearance of
youth. She was like a child who had exhausted itself with crying, and
still trembled with an occasional sob. She stretched up her arms to him
as if she would have put them round his neck, and bade God bless him
with a tremulous voice.

"You must have plenty of courage," she said; "and you must never, never
give up your own way."

Walter was touched to the heart by this look of trouble on the innocent,
young-old face.

"I thought it was always right to give up one's own way," he said, in
the light tone which he had come to employ with her.

She made an effort to smile in response.

"Oh yes, oh yes, it's the fashion to say so. You are a self-denying
race, to believe yourselves; but this time you must not yield."

"To whom am I supposed to be about to yield?" he asked. "You may be sure
I sha'n't unless I can't help myself."

The tears overflowed her bright old eyes; her hands shook as they held
his.

"God bless you! God bless you!" she said. "I will do nothing but pray
for you, and you will tell me when you come back."

He left her lying back upon her cushions sobbing under her breath. All
this half-perplexed, half-amused the young man. She was a very strange
little creature, he felt, neither old nor young; there was no telling
the reason of her emotion. She was so much indulged in all her whims,
like a spoiled child, that perhaps these tears were only her regrets for
a lost playmate. At the same time Walter knew that this was not so, and
was angry with himself for the thought. But how find his way out of the
perplexity? He shook it off, which is always the easiest way; and soon
the landscape began to attract his attention, and he forgot by degrees
that there was anything very unusual in the circumstances of his
journey. It was not till the first long stage of this journey was over
that he was suddenly roused to a recollection of everything involved, by
the appearance of Symington at the carriage window, respectfully
requesting to know whether he had wanted anything. Walter had not
remembered, or if he had remembered had thought no more of it, that this
quietly officious retainer had taken all trouble from him at the
beginning of his journey, as he had done during his stay in Mr.
Milnathort's house.

"What! are you here?" he said, with surprise, and a mixture of amusement
and offence.

"I beg your pardon, my lord," said Symington, with profound and serious
respect, yet always a twinkle in his eye, "but as the other man did not
turn up--and your lordship could scarcely travel without some
attendance----"

He had to rush behind to get his place in the train in the midst of his
sentence, and Walter was left to think it over alone. In the balance
between anger and amusement the latter fortunately won the day. The
comic side of the matter came uppermost. It seemed to him very droll
that he should be taken possession of, against his will, by the valet
who professed an attachment to the race, not to the individual members
of it, whose head was garlanded with crape in the quaint Scotch way for
Walter's predecessor, and who had "identified himself with the
Erradeens." He reminded himself that he was in the country of Caleb
Balderstone and Ritchie Moniplies, and he resigned himself to
necessity. Symington's comic yet so respectful consciousness that "the
other man" was a mere imagination, was joke enough to secure his pardon,
and Walter felt that though the need of attendance was quite new in his
life, that it might be well on his arrival in a strange country and a
lonely ruined house, to have some one with him who was not ignorant
either of the locality or the household.

The country increased in interest as he went on, and by and by he forgot
himself in gazing at the mountains which appeared in glimpses upon the
horizon, then seemed to draw nearer, closing in upon the road, which led
along by the head of one loch after another, each encompassed by its
circle of hills. Walter knew very little about Scotland. He thought it a
barren and wild country, all bleak and gloomy, and the lavish vegetation
of the west filled him with surprise and admiration. The sun was near
its setting when the railway journey came to an end, and he found
himself at a village station, from which a coach ran to Kinloch Houran.
It appeared that there was no other vehicle to be had, and though it was
cold there was nothing else for it but to clamber up on the top of the
rude coach, which was a sort of _char-à-banc_ without any interior.
Walter felt that it would become him ill, notwithstanding his new rank,
to grumble at the conveyance, upon which there mounted nimbly a girl
whom he had remarked when leaving Edinburgh, and whom he had watched for
at all the pauses of the journey. He thought her the very impersonation
of all he had ever heard of Scotch beauty, and so would most observers
to whom Scotland is a new country. The native Scot is aware that there
are as many brown locks as golden, and as many dark maidens as fair ones
in his own country; but notwithstanding, to the stranger it is the fair
who is the type. This young lady was warmly clothed in dark tweed, of
the ruddy heathery hue which is now so general, not long enough to
conceal her well-shod feet, closely fitting, and adapted for constant
walking and movement. She seemed to be met by friends all along the
route. From the carriage window Walter saw her look out with little
cries of pleasure. "Oh, is that you, Jack?" "Oh, Nelly, where are you
going?" "Oh, come in here, there is room in this carriage," and such
like. She was always leaning out to say a word to somebody, either of
farewell or welcome. "You will remember me to your mother," old
gentlemen would call to her, as the train went on. Walter was greatly in
want of amusement, and he was at the age when a girl is always
interesting. She became to him the heroine of the journey. He felt that
he was collecting a great deal of information about her as they
travelled on, and had begun to wonder whether he should ever find out
who she was, or see any more of her, when he perceived her, to his
delight, getting out, as he himself did, at Baldally. She was met by a
respectable woman servant, who took possession of her baggage, while the
young lady herself ran across the road to the coach, and with a hearty
greeting to John the coachman darted up to the seat immediately behind
him, where her maid presently joined her. Walter, and a personage of the
commercial traveller class, shared the coachman's seat in front, and
Symington and some other humbler passengers sat behind. The coach was
adapted for summer traffic, so that there were several lines of empty
seats between the two sets of travellers. It gave Walter a great deal of
pleasure to hear the soft voice of his fellow-traveller pouring forth,
low yet quite audible, an account of her journey to her maid, who was
evidently on the most confidential terms with her young mistress.

"Has mamma missed me--much?" she asked after the little Odyssey was
over.

"Oh, Miss Oona, to ask that," cried the woman; "how should we no miss
you?" and then there ensued a number of details on the home side. The
girl had been on a visit in Edinburgh, and had gone to balls, and "seen
everything." On the other hand many small matters, faithfully reported,
had filled up the time of separation. Walter listened to all this
innocent interchange with great amusement and interest as the coach made
its way slowly up the ascents of the hilly road. It was not in itself an
agreeable mode of progression: the wind was icy cold, and swept through
and through the unfortunates who faced it in front, sharpening into
almost absolute needle points of ice when the pace quickened, and the
noisy, jolting vehicle lumbered down the further side of a hill,
threatening every moment to pitch the passengers into the heathery bog
on one side or the other. He tried to diminish his own discomfort by the
thought that he took off the icy edge of the gale and sheltered the
little slim creature in her close ulster behind, about whose shoulders
the maid had wound the snowy mass of a great white knitted shawl. The
low sun was in their faces as they toiled and rattled along, and the
clear wintry blue of the sky was already strewn with radiant rosy masses
of cloud. When they reached the highest point of the road the dazzling
gleam of the great loch lying at their feet and made into a mirror of
steel by the last blaze of the sun before it disappeared, dazzled the
young man, who could see nothing except the cold intolerable brightness;
but in a moment more the scene disclosed itself. Hills all purple in the
sunset, clothed with that ineffable velvet down which softens every
outline, opened out on either side, showing long lines of indistinct
green valleys and narrower ravines that ran between, all converging
towards the broad and noble inland sea fringed with dark woods and
broken with feathery islands, which was the centre of the landscape. The
wonderful colour of the sky reflected in the loch, where everything
found a reflection, and every knoll and island floated double, changed
the character of the scene and neutralised the dazzling coldness of the
great water-mirror. Walter's involuntary exclamation at this sight
stopped for a moment all the conversation going on. "By Jove," he said,
"how glorious!" They all stopped talking, the coachman, the traveller,
the woman behind, and looked at him. Big John the driver, who knew
everybody, eyed him with a slightly supercilious air, as one who felt
that the new-comer could not be otherwise than contemptible, more or
less, even though his sentiments were irreproachable. "Ay, sir--so
that's your opinion? most folk have been beforehand with ye," said John.

The commercial traveller added, condescendingly, "It is cold weather for
touring, sir; but it's a grand country, as ye say." And then they
resumed their conversation.

The young lady behind was far more sympathetic. She made a distinct
pause, and when she spoke again it was with a flattering adoption of
Walter's tone to point out to her companion how beautiful the scene was.

"The isle is floating too, Mysie--look! If we could get there soon
enough we might land upon one of those rosy clouds."

Walter gave a grateful glance behind him, and felt that he was
understood.

"That is just your poetry, Miss Oona," said the maid; "but, bless me, I
have never told ye: there has been the light lighted in the castle these
two nights past. We have just thought upon you all the time, and how
much taken up you would be about it, your mamma and me."

"The light on the castle!" cried the young lady; and at this the
coachman, turning slightly round, entered into the conversation.

"That has it," he said; "I can back her up in that; just as clear and as
steady as a star. There are many that say they never can see it; but
they would be clever that had not seen it these two past nights."

"Who says they cannot see it?" said the girl, indignantly.

John gave a little flick to his leader, which made the whole machine
vibrate and roll.

"Persons of the newfangled kind that believe in nothing," he said. "They
will tell ye it cannot be--so how can you see it? though it is glinting
in their faces all the time."

"You are meaning me, John," said the traveller on the box-seat; "and
there's truth in what you say. I've seen what you call the light, and no
doubt it has the appearance of a light; but if ye tell me it's something
supernatural, there can be no doubt I will answer ye that there's
nothing supernatural. If you were to tell me ye had seen a ghost, I
would just reply in the same way. No, my man, I'm not impeachin' your
veracity. You saw something, I'll allow; but no' a ghost, for there are
no ghosts to see."

"That's just an awfu' easy way of settlin' the question," said the maid
from behind--and then she went on in a lower tone: "This will be the
third night since it began, and we've a' seen it on the Isle. Hamish,
he says the new lord maun be of a dour kind to need so many warnings.
And he's feared ill will come of it; but I say the new lord, no' bein'
here away nor of this country at all, how is he to ken?"

The girl's voice was now quite low, almost a whisper: but Walter being
immediately in front of her could still hear. "Has anything been heard,"
she said, "of the new lord?"

"Very little, Miss Oona, only that he's a young lad from the south with
no experience, and didna even know that he was the heir; so how could he
ken? as I say to Hamish. But Hamish he insists that it's in the blood,
and that he would ken by instinck; and that it shows an ill-will, and
ill will come of it."

"If I were he," cried the girl, "I would do the same. I would not be
called like that from the end of the world wherever I was."

"Oh, whisht, Miss Oona. It is such an auld, auld story; how can the like
of you say what should be done?"

"I would like myself," said the traveller, "to come to the bottom of
this business. What is it for, and who has the doing of it? The moment
you speak of a light ye pre-suppose a person that lights it and mainy
adjuncks and accessories. Now there's nobody, or next to nobody, living
in that auld ruin. It's some rendeyvouss, I can easily understand that.
The days of conspiracies are gone by, or I would say it was something
against the state; but whatever it is, it must have a purpose, and
mortal hands must do it, seeing there are no other. I have heard since
ever I began to travel this country of the Kinloch Houran light, but I
never heard a reason assigned."

"It's the living lord," cried the maid, "as everybody knows! that is
called to meet with----"

Here the young lady interfered audibly--

"Mysie, not a word!" The woman's voice continued, stifled as if a hand
had been laid on her mouth.

"With them that are--with ane that is--I'm saying nothing, Miss Oona,
but what all the loch is well aware----"

"It's just a ferlie of this part of the world," said John the driver;
"nae need of entering into it with them that believe naething. I'm no
what ye call credulous mysel'; but when it comes to the evidence of a
man's ain senses----"

"And what have your senses said to ye, my fine fellow? that there's a
queer kind of a glimmer up upon the auld tower? So are there
corpse-candles, if I'm not mistaken, seen by the initiated upon your
burial isle--what do you call it?"

"And wha has a word to say gainst that?" cried the driver angrily;
whilst Mysie behind murmured--"It's well seen ye have naething to do
with any grave there."

Now Walter was as entirely free from superstition as any young man need
be; but when he heard the laugh with which the sceptic greeted these
protests, he had the greatest mind in the world to seize him by the
collar and pitch him into the bog below. Why? but the impulse was quite
unreasonable and defied explanation. He had as little faith in
corpse-candles as any bagman ever had, and the embarrassed and uneasy
consciousness he had that the end of his journey was inexplicable, and
its purpose ridiculous, led him much more to the conclusion that he was
being placed in a ludicrous position, than that there was anything
solemnly or awfully mysterious in it. Nevertheless, so far from ranging
himself upon the side of the enlightened modern who took the
common-sense view of these Highland traditions, his scorn and impatience
of him was beyond words. For his own part he had not been sufficiently
self-possessed to join in the discussion; but at this moment he ventured
a question--

"Is this old castle you speak of--" here he paused not knowing how to
shape his inquiry; then added, "uninhabited?" for want of anything
better to say.

"Not altogether," said John; "there is auld Macalister and his wife that
live half in the water, half out of the water. And it's the story in the
parish that there are good rooms; aye ready for my lord. But I can tell
ye naething about that, for I'm always on the road, and I see nothing
but a wheen tourists in the summer, that are seeking information, and
have none to give, puir creatures. There's a new lord just come to the
title; ye will maybe have met with him if ye're from the south, for he's
just an English lad."

"England, my man John, is a wide road," said the traveller; "there are
too many for us all to know each other as ye do in a parish; this
gentleman will tell ye that."

John's satirical explanation that he had not suspected Mr. Smith, whose
northern accent was undoubted, of being an Englishman, saved Walter from
any necessity of making a reply; and by this time the coach was rattling
down upon a little homely inn, red-roofed and white-walled, which stood
upon a knoll, overlooking the loch, and was reflected in all its
brightness of colour in that mirror. The ground shelved rapidly down to
the water-side, and there were several boats lying ready to put out into
the loch--one a ponderous ferry boat, another a smaller, but still
substantial and heavy, cobble, in which a man with a red shirt and
shaggy locks was standing up relieved against the light. Walter jumped
down hurriedly with the hope of being in time to give his hand to the
young lady, who perhaps had divined his purpose, for she managed to
alight on the other side and so balk him. The landlady of the little inn
had come out to the door, and there was a great sound of salutations and
exclamations of welcome. "But I mustna keep you, Miss Oona, and your
mamma countin' the moments; and there's two or three parcels," the woman
said. The air had begun to grow a little brown, as the Italians say,
that faint veil of gathering shade which is still not darkness, was
putting out by degrees the radiance of the sky, and as Walter stood
listening all the mingled sounds of the arrival rose together in a
similar mist of sound, through which he sought for the soft little
accents of the young lady's voice amid the noises of the unharnessing,
the horses' hoofs and ostler's pails, and louder tones. Presently he saw
her emerge from the group with her maid, laden with baskets and small
parcels, and embarking under the conduct of the man in the red shirt,
whom she greeted affectionately as Hamish, assume her place in the
stern, and the ropes of the rudder, with evident use and wont. To watch
her steer out into the darkening loch, into the dimness and cold, gave
the young man a vague sensation of pain. It seemed to him as if the last
possible link with the human and sympathetic was detaching itself from
him. He did not know her indeed, but it does not take a long time or
much personal knowledge to weave this mystic thread between one young
creature and another. Most likely, he thought, she had not so much as
noticed him: but she had come into the half-real dream of his existence,
and touched his hand, as it were, in the vague atmosphere which
separates one being from another. Now he was left with nothing around
him but the darkening landscape and the noisy little crowd about the
coach; no one who could give him any fellowship or encouragement in the
further contact which lay before him with the mysterious and unknown.

After a few moments the landlady came towards him, smoothing down her
white apron, which made a great point in the landscape, so broad was it
and so white. She smiled upon him with ingratiating looks.

"Will you be going north, sir?" she said; "or will you be biding for the
night? Before we dish up the dinner and put the sheets on the bed we
like to know."

"Who is that young lady that has just gone away?" said Walter, not
paying much attention; "and where is she going? It is late and cold for
the water. Do you ever get frozen here?"

"That is Miss Oona of the Isle," said the landlady; "but as I was
saying, sir, about the beds----"

"Are the islands inhabited then?" said Walter; "and where is Kinloch
Houran? Does one go there by water too?"

"No, Mistress Macgregor," said Symington's voice on the other side; "my
lord will not bide here to-night. I've been down to the beach, and there
is a boat there, but not your lordship's own, any more than there was a
carriage waiting at Baldally. We must just put our pride in our pockets,
my lord, and put up with what we can get. When your lordship's ready
we're all ready."

By this time Big John and all the others were standing in a group
staring at Lord Erradeen with all their eyes. John explained himself in
a loud voice, but with an evident secret sense of shame.

"Hoo was I to ken? A lord has nae business to scour the country like
that, like ony gangrel body--sitting on the seat just like the rest of
us--Mr. Smith and him and me. Lord! hoo was I to ken? If you hear nae
good of yourself, it is just your ain blame. I was thinking of no lord
or any such cattle. I was just thinking upon my beasts. As for a lord
that gangs about like yon, deceiving honest folk, I wouldna give that
for him," John said, snapping his finger and thumb. His voice sank at
the end, and the conclusion of the speech was but half audible. Mrs.
Macgregor interposing her round, soft intonation between the speaker and
the stranger.

"Eh, my lord, I just beg your pardon! I had no notion--and I hope your
lordship found them a' civil. Big John is certainly a little quick with
his tongue--"

"I hope you're not supposing, Mistress Macgregor, that his lordship
would fash himself about Big John," said Symington, who had now taken
the direction of affairs. Walter, to tell the truth, did not feel much
inclination to enter into the discussion. The gathering chill of the
night had got into his inner man. He went down towards the beach slowly
pondering, taking every step with a certain hesitation. It seemed to him
that he stood on the boundary between the even ground of reality and
some wild world of fiction which he did not comprehend, but had a
mingled terror and hatred of. Behind him everything was homely and poor
enough; the light streamed out of the open doors and uncovered windows,
the red roof had a subdued glow of cheerfulness in the brown air, the
sounds about were cheerful, full of human bustle and movement, and
mutual good offices. The men led the horses away with a certain
kindness; the landlady, with her white apron, stopped to say a friendly
word to Big John, and interchanged civilities with the other humble
passengers who were bringing her no custom, but merely passing her door
to the ferry-boat that waited to take them across the loch. Everywhere
there was a friendly interchange, a gleam of human warmth and mutual
consolation. But before him lay the dark water, with a dark shadow of
mingled towers and trees lying upon it at some distance. He understood
vaguely that this was Kinloch Houran, and the sight of it was not
inviting. He did not know what it might be that should meet him there,
but whatever it was it repelled and revolted him. He seemed to be about
to overpass some invisible boundary of truth and to venture into the
false, into regions in which folly and trickery reigned. There was in
Walter's mind all the sentiment of his century towards the supernatural.
He had an angry disbelief in his mind, not the tranquil contempt of the
indifferent. His annoyed and irritated scorn perhaps was nearer faith
than he supposed; but he was impatient of being called upon to give any
of his attention to those fables of the past which imposture only could
keep up in the present. He felt that he was going to be made the victim
of some trick or other. The country people evidently believed, indeed,
as was natural enough to their simplicity; but Walter felt too certain
that he would see the mechanism behind the most artful veil to believe
it possible that he himself could be taken in, even for a moment. And
he had no desire to find out the contemptible imposture. He felt the
whole business contemptible; the secluded spot, the falling night, the
uninhabited place, were all part of the jugglery. Should he voluntarily
make himself a party to it, and walk into the snare with his eyes open?
He felt sure, indeed, that he would remain with his eyes open all the
time, and was not in the least likely to submit to any black art that
might be exercised upon him. But he paused, and asked himself was it
consistent with the dignity of a reasonable creature, a full-grown man,
to allow himself to be drawn into any degrading contact with this
jugglery at all?

The boat lay on the beach with his baggage already in it, and Symington
standing respectful awaiting his master's pleasure. Symington, no doubt,
was the god out of the machinery who had the _fin mot_ of everything and
all the strings in his hand. What if he broke the spell peremptorily and
retired to the ruddy fireside of the inn and defied family tradition? He
asked himself again what would come of it? and replied to himself
scornfully that nothing could come of it. What law could force him to
observe an antiquated superstition? It was folly to threaten him with
impossible penalties. And even if a thing so absurd could happen as that
he should be punished in purse or property for acting like a man of
sense instead of a fool, what then? The mere possibility of the risk
made Walter more disposed to incur it. It was monstrous and
insufferable that he should be made to carry out a tyrannical,
antiquated stipulation by any penalty of the law. It would be better to
fight it out once for all. All the sense of the kingdom would be with
him, and he did not believe that any judge could pronounce against him.
Here Symington called, with a slight tone of anxiety, "We are all ready,
my lord, and waiting." This almost decided Walter. He turned from the
beach, and made a few hasty steps up the slope.

But then he paused again, and turning round faced once more the
darkening water, the boat lying like a shadow upon the beach, the vague
figures of the men about it. The ferry-boat had pushed off and was
lumbering over the water with great oars going like bats' wings, and a
noisy human load. The other little vessel with that girl had almost
disappeared. He thought he could see in the darkness a white speck like
a bird, which was the white shawl that wrapped her throat and shoulders.
Her home lay somewhere in the centre of these dark waters, a curious
nest for such a creature. And his? He turned again towards the dark,
half-seen towers and gables. Some of them were so irregular in outline
that they could be nothing but ruins. He began to think of the past,
mute, out of date, harmless to affect the life that had replaced it,
which had taken refuge there. And he remembered his own argument about
the courtesy that the living owed to the dead. Well! if it was so, if it
was as a politeness, a courtesy to the past, it might be unworthy a
gentleman to refuse it. And perhaps when all was said it was just a
little cowardly to turn one's back upon a possible danger, upon what at
least the vulgar thought a danger. This decided him. He turned once
more, and with a few rapid steps reached the boat. Next moment they were
afloat upon the dark loch. There had been no wind to speak of on shore,
but the boat was soon struggling against a strong running current, and a
breeze which was like ice. The boatmen showed dark against the gleaming
loch, the rude little vessel rolled, the wind blew. In front of them
rose the dark towers and woods all black without a sign of human
habitation. Walter felt his heart rise at last with the sense of
adventure. It was the strangest way of entering upon a fine
inheritance.




CHAPTER X.


Kinloch Houran Castle stands out of the very waters of Loch Houran, with
its ruined gables and towers clothed with ivy. From the water it looked
like nothing but a roofless and deserted ruin. One tower in the centre
stood up above the jagged lines of the walls, with something that looked
like a ruined balcony or terrace commanding the landscape. The outline
was indistinct, for the trees that had got footing in the ruined
chambers below grew high and wild, veiling the means by which it was
sustained at that altitude: but the little platform itself was very
visible, surrounding the solid block of the tower, which showed no
window or opening, but looked as if it might yet outlive centuries. As
the boat approached, Walter saw the rowers whisper, and give significant
looks at Symington, who sat respectfully on one of the cross seats, not
to put himself in the way of his master, who occupied the other alone.
Hoarse whispers breathed about the other end of the boat, and Symington
was progged in the shoulders with an occasional oar. "Will ye no' be
letting him see't?" the rowers said. Walter's faculties were eagerly
acute in the strangeness of everything around him; the sense that he was
going to an impossible house--to a ruin--on an impossible errand, seemed
to keep him on the alert in every particular of his being. He could see
through the dusk, he could hear through the whistle of the wind and the
lashing of the water upon the boat's side, which was like the roar of a
mimic storm; and he was not even insensible to the comic element in
Symington's face, who waved away the oar with which he was poked, and
replied with words and frowns and looks full of such superiority of
information, that a burst of sudden nervous laughter at the sight
relieved Walter's excitement. He felt that a thrill of disapproval at
this went through the boat, and the men in the bow shook their bonnets
as they rowed.

"It's nothing to laugh at, my lord," said old Symington, "though I'm not
one--and I make no question but your lordship is not one--to lose my
presence o' mind. Yon's the phenomenon that they wanted me to call your
lordship's attention to," he added, jerking his arm, but without turning
his head, in the direction of the tower.

"The light?" Walter said. He had been about to ask what the meaning of
it might be. It had not been visible at all when they started, but for
the last moment or two had been growing steadily. The daylight was
waning every minute, and no doubt (he thought) it was this that made the
light more evident. It shone from the balcony or high roof-terrace
which surrounded the old tower. It was difficult to distinguish what it
was, or identify any lamp or beacon as the origin of it. It seemed to
come from the terrace generally, a soft, extended light, with nothing
fiery in it, no appearance of any blaze or burning, but a motionless,
clear shining, which threw a strange glimmer upwards upon the solid mass
of the tower, and downwards upon the foliage, which was black and
glistening, and upon the surface of the water. "Yon's the phenomenon,"
said Symington, pointing with a jerk of his elbow. The light brought out
the whole mass of rugged masonry and trees from the rest of the
landscape, and softly defined it against the darker background.

"How is it done?" said the young man, simply. He perceived the moment
after that his tone was like that of the bagman on the coach, and
shivered at the thought. So soft and steady was the light that it had
not seemed to him extraordinary at all.

"What do you mean by a phenomenon?" he asked, hastily. He remembered
suddenly that the young lady on the coach had spoken of this light, and
taken it, so to speak, under her protection.

"If your lordship has ainy desire to inquire into my opinion," said old
Symington, "though I doubt that's little likely, I would say it was just
intended to work on the imagination. Now and then, indeed, it's useful
in the way of a sign--like a person waving to you to come and speak;
but to work on the imagination, that's what I would say."

Walter looked up at the light which threw a faint glimmer across the
dark water, showing the blackness of the roughened ripple, over which
they were making their way, and bringing into curious prominence the
dark mass of the building rising out of it. It was not like the moon, it
was more distinct than starlight, it was paler than a torch: nor was
there any apparent central point from which it came. There was no
electric light in those days, nor was Loch Houran a probable spot for
its introduction: but the clear colourless light was of that
description. It filled the visitor with a vague curiosity, but nothing
more.

"To work on--whose imagination? and with what object?" he said.

But as he asked the question the boat shot forward into the narrow part
of the loch, and rounded the corner of the ruin. Anything more hopeless
as a place to which living passengers, with the usual encumbrances of
luggage, were going, could not well be conceived; but after a few
minutes' rowing, the boat ran in to some rude steps on the other side of
the castle, where there were traces of a path leading up across the
rough grass to a partially visible door. All was so dark by this time
that it was with difficulty that Walter found the landing; when he had
got ashore, and his portmanteau had been put out on the bank, the men in
the boat pushed off with an energy and readiness which proved their
satisfaction in getting clear of the castle and its traditions. To find
himself left there, with an apparently ruined house behind him, his
property at his feet, his old servant by his side, night closing in
around, and the dark glistening water lapping up on the stones at his
feet, was about as forlorn a situation as could be imagined.

"Are we to pass the night here?" he said, in a voice which could not
help being somewhat querulous.

The sound of a door opening behind interrupted his words, and turning
round he saw an old man standing in the doorway, with a small lamp in
his hand. He held it up high over his head to see who the new-comers
were; and Walter, looking round, saw a bowed and aged figure--a pale old
face, which might have been made out of ivory, so bloodless was it, the
forehead polished and shining, some grey locks escaping at the side of a
black skull-cap, and eyes looking out keenly into the darkness.

"It is just his lordship, Macalister," said old Symington.

The young man, who was so strange to it all, stood with a sort of
helplessness between the two old men who were familiar with each other
and the place and all its customs.

"Come away, then, come away," cried the guardian of the house, with a
shrill voice that penetrated the stillness sharply. "What are ye biding
there for in the dark?"

"And who's to carry up my lord's portmanteau?" said Symington.

"His portmanteau!" cried the other, with a sort of eldritch laugh. "Has
he come to bide?"

This colloquy held over him exasperated Walter, and he seized the
portmanteau hastily, forgetting his dignity.

"Lend a hand, Symington, and let us have no more talk," he said.

There is a moment when the most forlorn sensations and the most dismal
circumstances become either ludicrous or irritating. The young man shook
off his sense of oppression and repugnance as he hastened up the slope
to the door, while the lantern, flashing fitfully about, showed now the
broken path, now the rough red masonry of the ruin, which was scarcely
less unlike a ruin on this side than on the other. The door gave
admittance into a narrow passage only, out of which a spiral staircase
ascended close to the entrance, the passage itself apparently leading
away into the darkness to a considerable distance. At the end of it
stood a woman with a lighted candle peering out at the stranger as the
man had done. He seemed to realise the stones which every one has read
of a belated traveller unwillingly received into some desolate inn,
which turns out to be the headquarters of a robber-band, and where the
intruder must be murdered ere the morning.

"This is your way, my lord," said the shrill old man, leading the way up
the spiral stair. The whole scene was like a picture. The woman holding
up her light at the end of the long passage, the old man with his lamp,
the dark corners full of silence and mystery, the cold wind blowing as
through an icy ravine. And the sensations of the young man, who had not
even had those experiences of adventure which most young men have in
these travelling days, whom poverty and idleness had kept at home in
tame domestic comfort, were very strange and novel. He seemed to himself
to be walking into a romance, not into any real place, but into some old
storybook, a mystery of Udolpho, an antiquated and conventional region
of gloom and artificial alarms.

"Come this way, my lord; come this way," said the old man; "the steps
are a bit worn, for they're auld, auld--as auld as the house. But we
hope you'll find everything as comfortable as the circumstances will
permit. We have had just twa three days to prepare, my mistress and me;
but we've done our best, as far," he added, "as the circumstances will
permit. This way, this way, my lord."

At the head of the stair everything was black as night. The old man's
lamp threw his own somewhat fantastic shadow upon the wall of a narrow
corridor as he held it up to guide the new-comer. Close to the top of
the staircase, however, there opened a door, through which a warm light
was showing, and Walter, to his surprise, found himself in a
comfortably-furnished room with a cheerful fire, and a table covered
for dinner, a welcome end to the discomfort and gloom of the arrival.
The room was low, but large, and there were candles on the mantelpiece
and table which made a sort of twinkling illumination in the midst of
the dark panelled walls and dark furniture. The room was lined with
books at one end. It was furnished with comfortable sofas and chairs of
modern manufacture. There was a curious dim mirror over the mantelshelf
in a heavy gilt frame of old carving, one or two dim old portraits hung
opposite, the curtains were drawn, the fire was bright, the white
tablecloth with an old-fashioned silver vase in the middle, and the
candles burning, made a cheerful centre of light. At the further end was
another door, open, which admitted to a bed-room, dim, but comfortable
in the firelight. All this was encouraging. Walter threw himself into a
chair with a sense that the situation altogether was improving. Things
cannot be so very bad when there is a fire and lights, and a prospect of
dinner. He began to laugh at himself, when he had taken off his coat,
and felt the warmth of the glowing fire. Everything around him was
adapted for comfort. There was a little want of light which left all the
corners mysterious, and showed the portraits dimly, like half-seen
spectators, looking down from the wall; but the comfortable was much
more present than the weird and uncanny which had so much predominated
on his arrival. And when a dinner, which was very good and carefully
cooked, and a bottle of wine, which, though he had not very much skill
in that subject, Walter knew to be costly and fine, had been served with
noiseless care by Symington, the young man began to recover his spirits,
and to think of the tradition which required his presence here, as silly
indeed, but without harm. After dinner he seated himself by the fire to
think over the whole matter. It was not yet a fortnight since this
momentous change had happened in his life. Before that he had been
without importance, without use in the world, with little hope, with
nothing he cared for sufficiently to induce him to exert himself one way
or another. Now after he had passed this curious probation, whatever it
was, what a life opened before him! He did not even know how important
it was, how much worth living. It shone before him indistinctly as a
sort of vague, general realisation of all dreams. Wealth--that was the
least of it; power to do whatever he pleased; to affect other people's
lives, to choose for himself almost whatever pleased him. He thought of
Parliament, even of government, in his ignorance: he thought of travel,
he thought of great houses full of gaiety and life. It was not as yet
sufficiently realised to make him decide on one thing or another. He
preferred it as it was, vague--an indefinite mass of good things and
glories to come. Only this ordeal, or whatever it was--those few days
more or less that he was bound to remain at Kinloch Houran, stood
between him and his magnificent career. And after all, Kinloch Houran
was nothing very terrible. It might be like the mysteries of Udolpho
outside; but all the mysteries of Udolpho turned out, he remembered,
quite explainable, and not so very alarming after all; and these rooms,
which bore the traces of having been lived in very lately, and which
were quite adapted to be lived in, did not seem to afford much scope for
the mysterious. There were certain points, indeed, in which they were
defective, a want of air, something which occasionally caught at his
respiration, and gave him a sort of choked and stifled sensation; but
that was natural enough, so carefully closed as everything was, curtains
drawn, every draught warded off. Sometimes he had an uneasy feeling as
if somebody had come in behind him and was hanging about the back of his
chair. On one occasion he even went so far as to ask sharply, "Is it
you, Symington?" but, looking back, was ashamed of himself, for of
course there was nobody there. He changed his seat, however, so as to
face the door, and even went the length of opening it, and looking out
to see if there was any one about. The little corridor seemed to ramble
away into a darkness so great that the light of his candle did no more
than touch its surface--the spiral staircase looked like a well of
gloom. This made him shiver slightly, and a half-wish to lock his door
came over him, of which he felt ashamed as he turned back into the
cheerful light.

After all, it was nothing but the sensation of loneliness which made
this impression. He went back to his chair and once more resumed his
thoughts--or rather was it not his thoughts--nay, his fancies--that
resumed him, and fluttered about and around, presenting to him a hundred
swiftly changing scenes? He saw visions of his old life, detached scenes
which came suddenly up through the darkness and presented themselves
before him--a bit of Sloebury High Street, with a group of his former
acquaintances now so entirely separated from him; the little
drawing-room at the cottage, with Julia Herbert singing him a song;
Underwood's rooms on that particular night when he had gone in, in
search of something like excitement, and had found everything so dull
and flat. None of these scenes had any connection with his new beginning
in life. They all belonged to the past, which was so entirely past and
over. But these were the scenes which came with a sort of perversity,
all broken, changing like badly managed views in a magic lantern,
produced before him without any will of his. There was a sort of
bewildering effect in the way in which they swept along, one effacing
another, all of them so alien to the scene in which he found himself. He
had to get up at last, shaking himself as free of the curious whirl of
unwonted imagination as he could. No doubt his imagination was excited;
but happily not, he said to himself, by anything connected with the
present scene in which he found himself. Had it been roused by these
strange surroundings, by the darkness and silence that were about him,
by the loneliness to which he was so unused, he felt that there was no
telling what he might see or think he saw; but fortunately it was not
in this way that his imagination worked. His pulse was quick, however,
his heart beating, a quite involuntary excitement in all his bodily
faculties. He got up hastily and went to the bookshelves, where he
found, to his surprise, a large collection of novels and light
literature. It seemed to Walter that his predecessor, whom he had never
seen--the former Lord Erradeen, who inhabited these rooms not very long
ago--had been probably, like himself, anxious to quench the rising of
his fancy in the less exciting course of a fictitious drama, the
conventional excitements of a story. He looked over the shelves with a
curious sympathy for this unknown person, whom indeed he had never
thought much upon before. Did that unknown know who was to succeed him?
Did he ever speculate upon Walter as Walter was now doing upon him? He
turned over the books with a strange sense of examining the secrets of
his predecessor's mind. They were almost all books of adventure and
excitement. He took down, after a moment, a volume of Dumas, and
returned to his easy-chair by the fire, to lose himself in the
breathless ride of d'Artagnan and the luckless fortunes of the three
companions. It answered the purpose admirably. A sudden lull came over
his restless fancy. He was in great comfort externally, warmed and fed
and reposing after a somewhat weary day, and the spell of the great
story-teller got hold of him. He was startled out of this equable calm
when Symington came in to light the candles in his bed-room and bring
hot water, and offer his services generally. Symington regarded him with
an approval which he did not think it worth his while to dissemble.

"That's right, my lord, that's right," he said. "Reading's a very fine
thing when you have too much to occupy your thoughts."

Walter was amused by this deliverance, and happily not impatient of it.
"That is a new reason for reading," he said.

"But it is a real just one, if your lordship will permit me to say so.
Keep you to your book, my lord; it's just fine for putting other things
out of your head. It's Dumas's you're reading? I've tried that French
fellow myself, but I cannot say that I made head or tail of him. He
would have it that all that has happened in history was just at the
mercy of a wheen adventurers, two or three vagrants of Frenchmen. No,
no. I may believe a great deal, but I'm not likely to believe that."

"I see you are a critic, Symington; and do you read for the same reason
that you have been suggesting to me?--because you have too much to
occupy your thoughts?"

"Well, pairtly, my lord, and pairtly just in my idle hours to pass the
time. I have made up your fire and lighted the candles, and everything
is in order. Will I wait upon your lordship till you're inclined for
your bed? or will I----" Symington made a significant pause, which it
was not very difficult to interpret.

"You need not wait," Walter said; and then, with an instinct which he
was half ashamed of, he asked hurriedly, "Whereabouts do you sleep?"

"That is just about the difficulty," said old Symington. "I'm rather out
of call if your lordship should want anything. The only way will just be
to come down the stairs, if your lordship will take the trouble, and
ring the big bell. It would waken a' the seven sleepers if it was rung
at their lug: and I'm not so ill to waken when there is noise enough.
But ye have everything to your hand, my lord. If you'll just give a
glance into the other room, I can let you see where everything is. There
is the spirit-lamp, not to say a small kettle by the fire, and
there's----"

"That will do," said Walter. "I shall not want anything more to-night."

The old servant went away with a glance round the room, in which Walter
thought there was some anxiety, and stopped again at the door to say
"Good night, my lord. It's not that I am keen for my bed--if your
lordship would like me to bide, or even to take a doze upon a chair----"

"Go to bed, old Sym.," said the young man with a laugh. The idea of
finding a protector in Symington was somewhat ludicrous. But these
interruptions disturbed him once more, and brought back his excitement:
he felt a sort of pang as he heard the old servant's heavy step going
down the winding stair, and echoing far away, as it seemed, into the
bowels of the earth. Then that extreme and blighting silence which is
like a sort of conscious death came upon the place. The thick curtains
shut out every sound of wind and water outside as they shut out every
glimpse of light. Walter heard his pulse in his ears, his heart thumping
like the hammer of a machine. The whole universe seemed concentrated in
that only living breathing thing, which was himself. He tried to resume
his book, but the spell of the story was broken. He could no longer
follow the fortunes of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Walter Methven thrust
himself in front of these personages, and, though he was not half so
amusing, claimed a superior importance by right of those pulses that
clanged in his head like drums beating. He said to himself that he was
very comfortable, that he had never expected to be so well off. But he
could not regain his composure or sense of well-being. It was a little
better when he went into his bed-room, the mere movement and passage
from one room to another being of use to him. The sense of oppression
and stagnation, however, soon became almost greater here than in the
sitting-room. One side of the room was entirely draped in close-drawn
curtains, so that it was impossible to make out even where the windows
were. He drew them aside with some trouble, for the draperies were very
heavy, but not to much advantage. At first it seemed to him that there
were no windows at all; then he caught sight of something like a recess
high in the wall; and climbing up, found the hasp of a rough shutter,
which covered a small square window built into a cave of the deep
masonry. That this should be the only means of lighting an almost
luxurious sleeping chamber, bewildered him more and more; but it would
not open, and let in no air, and the atmosphere felt more stifling than
ever in this revelation of the impossibility of renewing it. Finally, he
went to bed with a sort of rueful sense that there was the last citadel
and refuge of a stranger beset by imaginations in so weird and
mysterious a place. He did not expect to sleep, but he determined that
he would not, at least, be the sport of his own fancies.

It astonished Walter beyond measure to find himself waking in broad
daylight, with Symington moving softly about the room, and a long
window, the existence of which he had never suspected, facing him as he
looked up from his pillows, after a comfortable night's sleep. Mingled
shame and amusement made him burst into an uneasy laugh, as he realised
this exceedingly easy end of his tribulations.

"Mrs. Macalister," said Symington, "would like well to know when your
lordship is likely to be ready, to put down the trout at the right
moment: for it's an awful pity to spoil a Loch Houran trout."




CHAPTER XI.


To insist upon the difference between an impression made when we arrive,
tired and excited at night, in a strange place, and that which the same
scene produces in the early freshness and new life of the morning, would
be to deliver ourselves over to the reign of the truism. It would,
however, have been impossible to feel this with more force than Walter
felt it. His sensations of alarm and excitement struck him not only as
unjustifiable but ludicrous. He laughed once more when he came out of
his chamber into the warm and genial room, which had seemed to him so
mysterious and dark on the previous night. There were windows upon
either side of the fire-place, each in a deep recess like a small room,
so great was the thickness of the wall. They looked out upon the
mountains, upon the narrow end of the loch, all bubbling and sparkling
in the sunshine, and down upon the little grassy slope rough and uncared
for, yet green, which was the only practicable entrance to the castle.
The windows were not large, and the room still not very light, though
the sunshine which poured in at one side made a most picturesque effect
of light and shade. The portraits on the wall were better than they had
seemed, and had lost the inquisitive air of dissatisfied inspection
which Walter's imagination had given them. The book-shelves at the end
gave relief to the room, with their cheerful gilding and the subdued
tone of their bindings. Walter thought of the chamber in the _Pilgrim's
Progress_ turned towards the sunrising, the name of which was Peace. But
peace was not the thing most suggested at Kinloch Houran by any of the
accessories about, and a vision of the chilliness of the gray light in
the afternoon, and the force of the east wind when it came, crossed his
mind in true nineteenth century criticism of the more poetical view. But
in the mean time, the policy of enjoying the present was undeniable,
especially when that present took the form of a Loch Houran trout, fresh
from the water, and cooked as fish only are under such conditions. He
looked back upon the agitations of the evening, and the reluctant angry
sentiment with which he had come to this old house of his family, with
amused incredulity and shame. To think that he could be such an
impressionable fool! He dismissed it all lightly from his mind as he
hurried over his breakfast, with the intention of getting out at once
and exploring everything about. He had even newspapers upon his table
along with the fresh scones, the new-made butter, all the fresh
provisions of the meal. To be sure, it was Glasgow and not London from
which they came--but the world's history was no less instant in them,
flashing from all parts of the world into this home of the ancient
ages.

His first inspection was of the castle itself, which he undertook under
the auspices of old Symington and old Macalister, both eager to explain
and describe what it had been, as well as what it was. What it was did
not consist of very much. "My lord's rooms," those in which he had spent
the night, were the only habitable portion of the great pile. He was led
through the roofless hall, with its musicians' gallery still perched
high up and overshadowed with canopies of ashen boughs, vigorous though
leafless; the guard-room, the supposed kitchen with its large chimney,
the oblong space from east to west which was supposed to have been the
chapel. All was a little incoherent in the completeness of ruin. There
was little of the stimulation of family pride to be got out of those
desolate places. The destruction was too complete to leave room even for
the facile web of imagination. The Crusader, about whom there was a
legend a little too picturesque and romantic to be true, or the lady who
was only saved by his sudden appearance from unfaithfulness, were not
more easy to conjure up within the inclosure of those shapeless walls
than on any unremarkable spot where the story might have been told.
Walter grew a little weary as Symington and the old guardian of the
house argued as to which was this division of the castle, and which
that. He left them discussing the question, and climbed up by a rude
stair which had been half improvised from the ruined projections of the
masonry, to the crumbling battlements above. From thence he looked down
upon a scene which was older than the oldest ruin, yet ever fresh in
perennial youth: the loch stretched out like a great mirror under the
wintry blue of the sky and the dazzling blaze of the sunshine,
reflecting everything, every speck of cloud above and every feathery
twig and minute island below. There was no need to make believe, to
simulate unfelt enthusiasm, or endeavour to connect with unreal
associations this wonderful and glorious scene. Perhaps there was in his
mind something more in harmony with the radiance of nature than with the
broken fragments of a history which he had no skill to piece up into
life again. He stood gazing upon the scene in a rapture of silent
delight. The hills in their robes of velvet softness, ethereal
air-garments more lovely than any tissue ever woven in mortal loom, drew
aside on either hand in the blue space and dazzling atmosphere to open
out this liquid vale of light, with its dark specks of islets, its
feathery banks, all rustling with leafless trees. Every outline and
detail within its reach was turned into a line, a touch, more sweet by
the flattering glory of the still water in which everything was double.
The morning freshness and sheen were still unbroken. It was like a new
creation lying contemplating itself in the first ecstasy of
consciousness. Walter was gazing upon this wonderful scene when the
sharp voice of old Macalister made him start, and take a step aside
which almost had serious consequences: for he stepped back unwarily
upon the crumbling wall, and might have fallen but for the violent grip
of the old man, who clutched him like a shaky Hercules, with a grasp
which was vigorous yet trembling.

"Lord's sake take care," he cried. His face flushed, then paled again
with genuine emotion. "Do you think we have a store of young lads like
you, that you will risk your life like yon? and just in the place where
the lady fell. You have given me such a start I canna breathe," he
cried.

To tell the truth, looking back upon it, Walter himself did not like the
look of the precipice which he had escaped.

"Where the lady fell?" he asked with a little eagerness, as he came to
the battlement.

"Oh ay. I seldom bother my head about what's happened, so to speak, two
or three days since. It was just there she fell. She has been bedridden
ever since, from a' I hear, which just shows the folly of venturing
about an auld place without somebody that knows how to take care of ye.
What would have come of you yoursel', that is the maister of a', if auld
Sandy Macalister had not been there?"

"Thank you, Macalister, you shall find me grateful," said Walter; "but
who was this lady? two or three days ago, did you say?"

"Years--years; did I no say years? Oh ay, it may be longer, twenty or
thirty. I'm meaning just naething in a life like mine. She had some
silly story of being frightened with a gentleman that she thought she
saw. They are keen about making up a story--women folk. She was just the
sister to the man of business, ye'll have heard of her--a pretty bit
thing, if that was of any consequence; but, Lord's sake, what's that
atween you and me, and you ignorant of everything?" the old man said.
"Do you see the chimneys yonder, and the gable end with the crow steps,
as they call it, just pushing out among the trees? That's just your ain
shooting-box--they call it Auchnasheen. I'll tell you the meanings of
the names another time. Out beyond yonder, the big house away at the
point, it's a new place built for his diversion by one of your new men.
Yon island far away that's bare and green is the island of Rest, where
all the loch was once buried: and atween us and that there's another
isle with a gable end among the trees which is just the last place
that's left to an auld race to plant their feet upon. It's a bonnie
piece of water; you that's come from the south you'll never have seen
the like. I'll tell you all the stories of the divers places, and how
they're connected with the Me'vens that are chiefs of Loch Houran; for I
wouldna give a button for that new-fangled title of the Lords Erradeen."

"It has lasted however for some centuries," said Walter, with a sudden
sense of displeasure which he felt to be absurd enough.

"And what is that in a family?" said old Macalister, "I think nothing of
it. A hundred years or two that never counts one way nor another; it's
nae antiquity. If that nonsense were true about the Warlock lord, he
would be but twa hundred and fifty at the present speaking, or
thereabouts, and a' that have ever thought they saw him represent him as
a fine personable man. I have never had that pleasure myself," the old
man said with his shrill laugh. "Where are you going, my young
gentleman? Ye'll just go down like a stane and end in a rattle of dust
and mortar, if you'll no be guided by me."

"Let you his lordship alone, Sandy," cried the voice of Symington,
intermingled with pants and sobs as he climbed up to the parapet. "Ye
must not occupy my lord's time with your old craiks. You would perhaps
like, my lord, to visit Auchnasheen, where the keeper will be on the
outlook: or may be it would be better to organise your day's shooting
for to-morrow, when you have lookit a little about you: or ye would
perhaps like to take a look at the environs, or see the factor, who is
very anxious as soon as your lordship has a moment--"

"Oh! and there is the minister that can tell ye a' about the
antiquities, my lord: and traces out the auld outline of the castle
grandly, till ye seem to see it in all its glory--"

"Or--" Symington had begun, when Walter turned at bay. He faced the old
men with a half-laughing defiance. "I see plenty of boats about," he
said. "I am going out to explore the loch. I want no attendance, or any
help, but that you will be good enough to leave me to myself."

"We'll do that, my lord. I will just run and cry upon Duncan that is
waiting about--"

The end of all this zeal and activity was that when Walter found himself
at last free and on the shining bosom of the loch, he was in a boat too
heavy for his own sole management, sharing the care of it with Duncan,
who was of a taciturn disposition and answered only when spoken to. This
made the arrangement almost as satisfactory as if he had been alone, for
Duncan was quite willing to obey and yield a hearty service without
disturbing his young master with either questions or remarks. He was a
large young man, strong and well knit though somewhat heavy, with a
broad smiling face, red and freckled, with honest blue eyes under sandy
eyelashes, and a profusion of strong and curly reddish hair. He beamed
upon Lord Erradeen with a sort of friendly admiration and awe,
answering, "Ay, my lord," and "No, my lord," always with the same smile
of general benevolence and readiness to comply with every desire. When
they had got beyond hail of the castle, from which Symington and
Macalister watched them anxiously, Duncan mutely suggested the elevation
of a mast and setting of the sail which the vessel was furnished with,
to which Walter assented with eagerness: and soon they were skimming
along before a light wind as if they had wings. And now began perhaps
the most pleasurable expedition that Walter had ever made in his life.
Escaped from the ruinous old pile, within which he had feared he knew
not what, escaped too from the observation and inspection of the two old
men so much better acquainted with the history of his family than
himself, whom he felt to be something between keepers and
schoolmasters--fairly launched forth upon the world, with nothing to
consult but his own pleasure, Walter felt his spirits rise to any height
of adventure. There was not indeed any very wild adventure probable, but
he was not much used to anything of the kind, and the sense of freedom
and freshness in everything was intoxicating to the young man. The small
boat, the rag of a sail, the lively wind that drove them along, the
rushing ripple under their keel, all delighted him. He held the helm
with a sense of pleasure almost beyond anything he had ever known,
feeling all the exhilaration of a discoverer in a new country, and for
the first time the master of himself and his fate. Duncan said nothing,
but grinned from ear to ear, when the young master in his inattention
to, or to tell the truth ignorance of, the capabilities of the boat,
turned the helm sharply, bringing her up to the wind in such a way as to
threaten the most summary end for the voyage. He kept his eye upon the
rash steersman, and Walter was not aware of the risks he ran. He
directed his little vessel now here, now there, with absolute enjoyment,
running in close ashore to examine the village, turning about again in a
wild elation to visit an island, running the very nose of the boat into
the rocky banks or feathery bushwood. How it was that no harm came as
they thus darted from point to point Duncan never knew. He stood up
roused to watchfulness, with his eyes intent on the movements of his
master ready to remedy any indiscretion. It was in the nature of such
undeserved vigilance that the object of it was never aware of it, but to
be sure Duncan had his own life to think of too.

They had thus swept triumphantly down the loch, the wind favouring, and
apparently watching over the rash voyager as carefully, as and still
more disinterestedly than Duncan. The motion, the air, the restless
career, the novelty, and the freedom enchanted Walter. He felt like a
boy in his first escapade, with an intoxicating sense of independence
and scorn of danger which gave zest to the independence. At every new
zigzag he made, Duncan but grinned the more. He uttered the Gaelic name
of every point and isle, briefly, with guttural depth, out of his chest,
as they went careering along before the wind. The boat was like an
inquisitive visitor, too open for a spy, poking in to every corner. At
length they came to an island standing high out of the water, with a
rocky beach, upon which a boat lay carefully hauled up, and a feathery
crest of trees, fine clumps of fir, fringed and surrounded by a
luxuriant growth of lighter wood. In the midst of this fine network of
branches, such as we call bare, being leafless, but which in reality are
all astir with life restrained, brown purple buddings eager to start and
held in like hounds in a leash--rose the solid outline of a house, built
upon the ridge of rock, and appearing like a shadow in the midst of all
the anatomy of the trees.

"That will be joost the leddy's," cried Duncan; at which Walter's heart,
so light in his bosom, gave an additional leap of pleasure. He steered
it so close that Duncan's vigilance was doubly taxed, for the least
neglect would have sent the little vessel ashore. Walter examined the
little landing, the rocky path that led up the bank, winding among the
trees, and as much as could be made out of the house, with keen
interest. The man with the red shirt, who had been the young lady's
boatman on the previous day, appeared at the further point as they went
on. He was fishing from a rock that projected into the water, and
turning to gaze upon the unwary boat, with astonished eyes, shouted
something in Gaelic to Duncan, who nodded good-humouredly a great many
times, and replied with a laugh in the same tongue--

"Yon will joost be Hamish," said Duncan.

"What is he saying?" cried Walter.

"He will just be telling us to mind where we are going," said Duncan,
imperturbable.

"Tell him to mind his own business," cried Walter, with a laugh. "And
who is Hamish, and who is the leddy? Come, tell me all about it." His
interest in the voyage flagged a little at this point.

Duncan thus interrogated was more put to it than by the dangerous course
they had hitherto been running.

"It will joost be the leddy," he said; "and Hamish that's her man: and
they will joost be living up there like ither persons, and fearing God:
fery decent folk--oh, joost fery decent folk."

"I never doubted that. But who are they, and what are they? And do you
mean to say they _live_ there, on that rock, in winter, so far north?"

Walter looked up at the dazzling sky, and repented his insinuation: but
he was, alas, no better than an Englishman, when all was said, and he
could not help a slight shiver as he looked back. Hamish, who had made a
fine point of colour on his projecting rock, had gone from that point,
and was visible in his red shirt mounting the high crest of the island
with hurried appearances and disappearances as the broken nature of the
ground made necessary. He had gone, there seemed little doubt, to
intimate to the inhabitants the appearance of the stranger. This gave
Walter a new thrill of pleasure, but it took away his eagerness about
the scenery. He lay back languidly, neglecting the helm, and as he
distracted Duncan's attention too, they had nearly run aground on the
low beach of the next island. When this difficulty was got over, Walter
suddenly discovered that they had gone far enough, and might as well be
making their way homeward, which was more easily said than done; for the
wind, which had hitherto served their purpose nobly, was no longer their
friend. They made a tack or two, and crept along a little, but
afterwards resigned themselves to ship the sail and take to the oars,
which was not so exhilarating nor so well adapted to show the beauty of
the landscape. It took them some time to make their way once more past
the rocky point, and along the edge of the island which attracted
Walter's deepest interest, but to which he could not persuade Duncan to
give any name.

"It will joost be the leddy's," the boatman insisted on saying, with a
beaming face; but either his English or his knowledge was at fault, and
he went no further.

Walter's heart beat with a kind of happy anxiety, a keen but pleasant
suspense, as he swept his oar out of the water, and glanced behind him
to measure how near they were to the landing, at which he had a
presentiment something more interesting than Hamish might be seen. And
as it turned out, he had not deceived himself. But what he saw was not
what he expected to see.

The lady on the bank was not his fellow-traveller of yesterday. She was
what Walter to himself, with much disappointment, called an old lady,
wrapped in a large furred mantle and white fleecy wrap about her head
and shoulders. She stood and waved her hand as Walter's boat came slowly
within range.

"You will be joost the leddy," said Duncan of the few words; and with
one great sweep of his oar he turned the boat towards the landing. It
was the man's doing, not the master's; but the master was not sorry to
take advantage of this sudden guidance. It was all done in a moment,
without intention. Hamish stood ready to secure the boat, and before he
had time to think, Walter found himself on the little clearing above the
stony bit of beach, hat in hand, glowing with surprise and pleasure, and
receiving the warmest of welcomes.

"You will forgive me for just stopping you on your way," the lady said;
"but I was fain to see you, Lord Erradeen, for your father and I were
children together. I was Violet Montrose. You must have heard him speak
of me."

"I hope," said Walter, with his best bow, and most ingratiating tone,
"that you will not consider it any fault of mine; but I don't remember
my father; he died when I was a child."

"Dear me," cried the lady; "how could I be so foolish! Looking at you
again, I see you would not be old enough for that: and, now I remember,
he married late, and died soon after. Well, there is no harm done. We
are just country neighbours, and as I was great friends with Walter
Methven some five-and-forty years ago----"

"I hope," said the young man with a bow and smile, "that you will be so
good as to be friends with Walter Methven now: for that is the name
under which I know myself."

"Oh, Lord Erradeen," the lady said with a little flutter of pleasure.
Such a speech would be pretty from any young man; but made by a young
lord, in all the flush of his novel honours, and by far the greatest
potentate of the district, there was no one up the loch or down the loch
who would not have been gratified. "It is just possible," she said,
after a momentary pause, "that having been brought up in England, and
deprived of your father so early, you may not know much about your
neighbours, nor even who we are, in this bit island of ours. We are the
Forresters of Eaglescairn, whom no doubt ye have heard of; and I am one
of the last of the Montroses--alas! that I should say so. I have but one
of a large family left with me; and Oona and me, we have just taken
advantage of an old family relic that came from my side of the house,
and have taken up our habitation here. I hear she must have travelled
with you yesterday on the coach, not thinking who it was. Oh, yes; news
travels fast at this distance from the world. I think the wind blows it,
or the water carries it. All the loch by this time is aware of Lord
Erradeen's arrival. Indeed," she added, with a little laugh, "you know,
my lord, we all saw the light."

She was a woman over fifty, but fair and slight, with a willowy figure,
and a complexion of which many a younger woman might have been proud;
and there was a little airiness of gesture and tread about her, which
probably thirty years before had been the pretty affectations,
half-natural, half-artificial, of a beauty, and which still kept up the
tradition of fascinating powers. The little toss of her head, the
gesture of her hands, as she said the last words, the half-apologetic
laugh as if excusing herself for a semi-absurdity, were all
characteristic and amusing.

"You know," she added, "in the Highlands we are allowed to be
superstitious," and repeated the little laugh at herself with which she
deprecated offence.

"What is it supposed to mean?" Walter asked somewhat eagerly. "Of course
there is some natural explanation which will be simple enough. But I
prefer to take the old explanation, if I knew what it was."

"And so do we," she said quickly. "We are just ready to swear to it, man
and woman of us on the loch. Some say it is a sign the head of the house
is coming--some that it is a call to him to come and meet--Dear me,
there is Oona calling. And where is Hamish? I will not have the child
kept waiting," said the lady, looking round her with a little nervous
impatience.

She had begun to lead the way upward by a winding path among the rocks
and trees, and now paused, a little breathless, to look down towards the
landing-place, and clap her hands impatiently.

"Hamish is away, mem," said the woman whom Walter had seen on the coach,
and who now met them coming down the winding path. She looked at him
with a cordial smile, and air of kindly welcome. It was evident that it
did not occur to Mysie that her salutations might be inappropriate.
"You're very welcome, sir, to your ain country," she said with a
courtesy, which was polite rather than humble. Walter felt that she
would have offered him her hand, on the smallest encouragement, with a
kindly familiarity which conveyed no disrespect.

"You should say my lord, Mysie," her mistress remarked.

"Deed, mem, and so I should; but when you're no much in the way o't, ye
get confused. I said, as soon as I heard the news, that it would be the
young gentleman on the coach, and I had just a feeling a' the time that
it was nae tourist, but a kent face. Hamish is away, mem. I tell him he
hears Miss Oona's foot on the bank, before ever she cries upon him; and
yonder he is just touching the shore, and her ready to jump in."

The party had reached a little platform on the slope. The path was
skilfully engineered between two banks, clothed with ferns and grasses,
and still luxuriant with a vivid green, though the overhanging trees
were all bare. Here and there a little opening gave a point of repose
and extended view. Mrs. Forrester paused and turned round to point out
to her visitor the prospect that now lay before them. She was a little
breathless and glad of the pause, but it did not suit her character to
say so. She pointed round her with a little triumph. They were high
enough to see the loch on either side, looking down upon it through the
fringe of branches. Opposite to this was the mainland which at that spot
formed a little bay, thickly wooded with the dark green of the fir
woods, amid which appeared the gables of a sort of ornamental cottage.
Nearer the eye was the road, and underneath the road on the beach stood
a little slight figure in the closely-fitting garb which Walter
recognised. She had evidently been set down from a waggonette full of a
lively party which waited on the high road to see her embark. It was
impossible to hear what they were saying, but the air was full of a
pleasant murmur of voices.

"It is the young Campbells of Ellermore," said Mrs. Forrester, waving
her handkerchief towards the group. "Oona has been spending last night
with them, and they have brought her back. They will all be astonished,
Mysie, to see me standing here with a gentleman. Dear me, they will all
be saying who has Mrs. Forrester got with her?"

"They will think," said Mysie, "just that it's Mr. James or Mr. Ronald
come home."

"Ah, Mysie, if that could be!" said the lady of the isle: and she put
her hands together, which were thin and white, and ornamented by a
number of rings, with a pretty conventional gesture of maternal regret.
Walter stood looking on with mingled amazement and pleasure: pleased as
if he were at a play with all the new indications of domestic history
which were opening to him, and with a sense of enjoyment through all his
being. When the girl sprang into the boat, and Hamish, conspicuous in
his red shirt, pushed off into the loch, the tumult of good-byes became
almost articulate. He laughed to himself under his breath, remembering
all the greetings he had heard along the line of railway, the
recognitions at every station.

"Your daughter seems to know everybody," he said.

"And how could she help knowing every person," cried Mysie, taking the
words, as it were, out of her mistress's mouth, "when she was born and
brought up on the loch, and never one to turn her back upon a neebor,
gentle or simple, but just adored wherever she goes?"

"Oh, whisht, Mysie, whisht! we are partial," said Mrs. Forrester with
her little antiquated graces; and then she invited Lord Erradeen to
continue his walk.

It was the full blaze of day, and the view extended as they went higher
up to the crest of rock upon which the house was set. It was built of
irregular reddish stone, all cropped with lichens where it was visible,
but so covered with clinging plants that very little of the walls could
be seen. The rustic porch was built something like a bee-hive, with
young, slim-growing saplings for its pillars, and chairs placed within
its shelter. There were some flower-beds laid out around, in which a few
autumn crocuses had struggled into pale bloom--and a number of china
roses hung half opened against the sides of the house. The roofs were
partly blue slates, that most prosaic of comfortable coverings, and
partly the rough red tiles of the country, which shone warm through the
naked boughs.

    "Every hardy plant could bear
     Loch Katrine's keen and searching air,"

was garlanded about the house, the little lawn was as green as velvet,
the china roses were pale but sweet. Behind the house were the mossed
apple-trees of a primitive orchard among the rocky shelves. It lay
smiling in the sun, with the silver mirror of the lake all round, and
every tint and outline doubled in the water. From the door the dark old
castle of Kinloch Houran stood out against the silent darkness of the
hill. Little rocky islets, like a sport of nature, too small to be
inhabited by anything bigger than rabbits, lay all reflected in broken
lines of rock and brushwood, between Walter's old castle and this
romantic house. They were so visible, one to the other, that the mere
position seemed to form a link of connection between the inhabitants.

"We cannot but take an interest in you, you see, Lord Erradeen, for we
can never get out of sight of you," said Mrs. Forrester.

"And I think the old place looks better from here than any other view I
have seen," Walter added almost in the same breath.

They laughed as they spoke together. It was not possible to be more
entirely "country neighbours." The young man had a fantastic feeling
that it was a sort of flattery to himself that his house should be so
entirely the centre of the landscape. He followed the lady into the
house with a little reluctance, the scene was so enchanting. Inside, the
roofs were low, but the rooms well-sized and comfortable. They were full
of curiosities of every kind: weapons from distant countries, trophies
of what is called "the chase," hung upon the wall of the outer hall.
The drawing-room was full of articles from India and China, carved
ivories, monsters in porcelain, all the wonders that people used to send
home before we got Japanese shops at every corner. An air of gentle
refinement was everywhere, with something, too, in the many ornaments,
little luxuries, and daintinesses which suggested the little
_minauderies_ of the old beauty, the old-fashioned airs and graces that
had been irresistible to a previous generation.

"You will just stay and eat your luncheon with us, Lord Erradeen. I
might have been but poor company, an old woman as I'm getting; but, now
that Oona is coming, I need not be too modest; for, though there will
not be a grand luncheon, there will be company, which is always
something. And sit down and tell me something about your father and the
lady he married, and where you have been living all this time."

Walter laughed. "Is it all my humble history you want me to tell you?"
he said. "It is not very much. I don't remember my father, and the lady
he married is--my mother, you know. The best mother----But I have not
been the best of sons. I was an idle fellow, good-for-nothing a little
while ago. Nobody knew what was going to come of me. I did nothing but
loaf, if you know what that means."

"Ah, that I do," said Mrs. Forrester; "that was just like my Jamie. But
now they tell me he is the finest officer----"

Walter paused, but the lady was once more entirely attention, listening
with her hands clasped, and her head raised to his with an ingratiating
sidelong look. He laughed. "They all made up their minds I was to be
good-for-nothing----"

"Yes," murmured Mrs. Forrester, softly, half closing her eyes and
shaking her head, "that was just like my Bob--till he took a thought:
and now he is planting coffee in Ceylon and doing well. Yes? and then?"

"An old man arrived one evening," said Walter, half laughing, "and told
me--that I was Lord Erradeen. And do you know, from that moment nobody,
not even I myself, would believe that I had ever loafed or idled or been
good-for-nothing."

There was a pause, in which Walter thought he heard some one move behind
him. But no sound reached Mrs. Forrester, who responded eagerly--

"My son, the present Eaglescairn, was just of the same kind," she said,
reflectively. She had a comparison ready for every case that could be
suggested--"till he came of age. It was in the will that they were to
come of age only at twenty-five, and till then I had a sore time. Oh,
Oona, my dear, is that you? And had you a pleasant evening. Here is
young Lord Erradeen that has come in, most kindly, I'm sure, to tell me
about his father, that I knew so well. And it appears you met upon the
coach yesterday. Come away, my dear, come away! And that was just most
curious that, knowing nothing of one another, you should meet upon the
coach."

Oona came in lightly, in her out-door dress. She gave Walter a look
which was very friendly. She had paused for a moment at the door, and
she had heard his confession. It seemed to Oona that what he said was
generous and manly. She was used to forming quick impressions. She had
been annoyed when she had heard from Hamish of the visitor, but her mind
changed when she heard what he said. She came up to him and held out her
hand. The fresh air was in her face, which Walter thought was like the
morning, all bright and fresh and full of life. She made him a little
curtsey with much gravity, and said in the pretty voice which was so
fresh and sweet, and with that novelty of accent which had amused and
delighted the young man, "You are welcome to your own country Lord
Erradeen."

"Now that is very pretty of you, Oona," cried her mother. "I never
thought you would remember to pay your little compliment, as a well-bred
person should; for, to tell the truth, she is just too brusque--it is
her fault."

"Hamish told me what to say," said Oona, with a glance of provocation.
"He is a very well-bred person. He told me I was to bid my lord welcome
to his own."

"Oh, my dear, you need not take away the merit of it, as if you had not
thought of it yourself," said the mother, aggrieved; "but run away and
take off your hat, and let us have our lunch, for Lord Erradeen has been
all the morning on the water and he will be hungry, and you are all
blown about with the wind."

The young people exchanged looks, while Mrs. Forrester made her little
protest. There was a sort of laughing interchange between them, in which
she was mocking and he apologetic. Why, neither could have said. They
understood each other, though they by no means clearly understood each
what he and she meant. There was to be a little war between them, all in
good-humour and good-fellowship, not insipid agreement and politeness.
The next hour was, Walter thought, the most pleasant he had ever spent
in his life. He had not been ignorant of such enjoyments before. When we
said that various mothers in Sloebury had with the first news of his
elevation suffered a sudden pang of self-reproach, to think how they had
put a stop to certain passages, the end of which might now have been to
raise a daughter to the peerage, it must have been understood that
Walter was not altogether a novice in the society of women; but this had
a new flavour which was delightful to him. It had been pleasant enough
in the cottage, when Julia Herbert sang, and on other occasions not
necessary to enter into. But on this romantic isle, where the sound of
the loch upon the rocks made a soft accompaniment to everything, in a
retirement which no vulgar interruption could reach, with the faded
beauty on one side, scarcely able to forget the old pretty mannerisms
of conquest even in her real maternal kindness and frank Highland
hospitality, and the girl, with her laughing defiance on the other, he
felt himself to have entered a new chapter of history. The whole new
world into which he had come became visible to him in their
conversation. He heard how he himself had been looked for, and how "the
whole loch" had known something about him for years before he had ever
heard of Loch Houran. "We used to know you as the 'English lad,'" Oona
said, with her glance of mischief. All this amused Walter more than
words can say. The sun was dropping towards the west before--escorted to
the landing-place by both the ladies, and taken leave of as an old
friend--he joined the slow-spoken Duncan, and addressed himself to the
homeward voyage. Duncan had not been slow of speech in the congenial
company of Hamish. They had discussed the new-comer at length, with many
a shaft of humour and criticism, during the visit which Duncan had paid
to the kitchen. He blushed not now, secure in the stronghold of his
unknown tongue, to break off in a witty remark at Walter's expense as he
turned to his master his beaming smile of devotion. They set off
together, master and man, happy yet regretful, upon their homeward way.
And it was a tough row back to Kinloch Houran against the fresh and not
too quiet Highland wind.




CHAPTER XII.


The castle looked more grim and ruined than ever as Walter set foot once
more upon the rough grass of the mound behind. He dismissed the smiling
Duncan with regret. As he went up to the door, which now stood open, he
thought to himself with relief that another day would finish his
probation here, and that already it was more than half over; but next
moment remembered that the end of his stay at Kinloch Houran would mean
also an end of intercourse with his new friends, which gave a different
aspect to the matter altogether. At the door of the castle old
Macalister was waiting with a look of anxiety.

"Ye'll have had no luncheon," he said, "and here's Mr. Shaw the factor
waiting to see ye."

Macalister had not the manners of Symington, and Walter already felt
that it was a curious eccentricity on the part of the old man to leave
out his title. The factor was seated waiting in the room up-stairs; he
was a middle-aged man, with grizzled, reddish locks, the prototype in a
higher class of Duncan in the boat. He got up with a cordial
friendliness which Walter began to feel characteristic, but which was
also perhaps less respectful than might have been supposed appropriate,
to meet him. He had a great deal to say of business which to Walter was
still scarcely intelligible. There were leases to renew, and there was
some question about a number of crofter families, which seemed to have
been debated with the former lord, and to have formed the subject of
much discussion.

"There is that question about the crofters at the Truach-Glas," Mr. Shaw
said.

"What crofters? or rather what are crofters? and what is the question
and where is the Truach-Glas?" Lord Erradeen said.

He pronounced it, alas! Truack, as he still called loch, lock--which
made the sensitive natives shudder. Mr. Shaw looked at him with a little
disapproval. He felt that the English lad should have been more
impressed by his new inheritance, and more anxious to acquire a mastery
of all the facts connected with it. If, instead of wandering about the
loch all the morning, he had been looking up the details of the business
and the boundaries of the estate, and studying the map! But that not
being the case, of course there was nothing to be done but to explain.

"I had thought that Mr. Milnathort would have put the needs of the
estate more clearly before you. There are several questions to be
settled. I don't know what may be your views as to a landlord's duties,
Lord Erradeen----"

"I have no views," said Walter; "I am quite impartial. You must
recollect that I have only been a landlord for a fortnight."

"But I suppose," said the factor somewhat severely, "that the heir to
such a fine property has had some kind of a little training?"

"I have had no training--not the slightest. I had no information even
that I was the heir to any property. You must consider me as entirely
ignorant, but ready to learn."

Shaw looked at him with some surprise, but severely still. "It is very
curious," he said, as if that too had been Walter's fault, "that you did
not know you were the heir. We knew very well here; but the late lord
was like most people, not very keen about his successor; and then he was
a comparatively young man when he died."

"I know nothing of my predecessor," said Walter. "What was the cause of
his death? I should like to hear something about him. Several of them
must have died young, I suppose, or I, so far off, could never have
become the heir."

The factor looked at him keenly, but with doubtful eyes. "There are
secrets in all families, my Lord Erradeen," he said.

"Are there? I thought that was rather an old-fashioned sentiment. I
don't think, except that I was not always virtuously occupied, that
there was any secret in mine."

"And I am sure there is no secret in mine," said Mr. Shaw,
energetically; "but then you see I am not, and you were not till a very
recent date, Lord Erradeen. There is a kind of something in the race
that I will not characterise. It is a kind of a melancholy turn; the
vulgar rumours ye will have heard, to which I attach no credence. It is
little worth while living in the nineteenth century," the factor said
with emphasis, "if ye are to be subject to delusions like that."

"I tell you I am quite ignorant; and, except by hints which I could not
understand, Mr. Milnathort did not give me any information. Speak
plainly, I want to know what the mystery is; why am I here in this
tumble-down old place?" Walter cried with an accent of impatience.

Shaw kept a watchful eye upon him, with the air of a man whom another is
trying to deceive.

"It is something in the blood, I'm thinking," the factor said. "They all
seem to find out there's a kind of contrariety in life, which is a thing
we all must do to be sure, but generally without any fatal effects.
After a certain age they all seem to give way to it. I hope that _you_,
my lord, being out of the direct line, will escape: the populace--if ye
can accept their nonsense--say it's a--well, something supernatural--a
kind of an influence from him they call the Warlock Lord." Shaw laughed,
but somewhat uneasily, apologetically. "I think shame to dwell upon such
absurdity," he said.

"It does sound very absurd."

"That is just it--nonsense! not worth the consideration of sensible men.
And I may say to you, that are, I hope, of a more wholesome mind, that
they are terribly given up to caprice in this family. The Truach-Glas
crofters have been up and down twenty times. The late lord made up his
mind he would let them stay, and then that they must go, and again that
he would just leave them their bits of places, and then that he would
help them to emigrate; and after all, I had the order that they were to
be turned out, bag and baggage. I could not find it in my heart to do
it. I just put off, and put off, and here he is dead; and another," said
Shaw, with a suppressed tone of satisfaction, "come to the throne. And
you're a new man and a young man, and belong to your own century, not to
the middle ages," the factor cried with a little vehemence. Then he
stopped himself, with a "I beg your pardon, my lord; I am perhaps saying
more than I ought to say."

Walter made no reply. He was not sure that he did not think the factor
was going too far, for though he knew so little of his family, he
already felt that it was something not to be subjected to discussion by
common men. These animadversions touched his pride a little; but he was
silent, too proud to make any remark. He said, after a pause--

"I don't know that I can give my opinion without a further acquaintance
with the facts. If I were to do so on so slight a knowledge, I fear you
might think that a caprice too."

The factor looked at him with a still closer scrutiny, and took the
hint. There is nothing upon which it is so necessary to understand the
permitted limit of observation as in the discussion of family
peculiarities. Though he was so little responsible for this, and even so
little acquainted with them, it was impossible that Lord Erradeen should
not associate himself with his race. Mr. Shaw got out his papers, and
entered upon the questions in which the opinion of the new proprietor
was important, without a word further about the late lord and the family
characteristics. He explained to Walter at length the position of the
crofters, with their small holdings, who in bad seasons got into arrears
with their rents, and sometimes became a burden upon the landlord, in
whom, so far north, there was some admixture of a Highland chief. The
scheme of the estate altogether was of a mixed kind. There were some
large sheep farms and extensive moors still intermingled with glens more
populated than is usual in these regions. Some of them were on lands but
recently acquired, and the crofters in particular were a burden
transmitted by purchase, which the father of the last lord had made. It
was believed that there had been some covenant in the sale by which the
rights of the poor people were secured, but this had fallen into
forgetfulness, and there was no reason in law why Lord Erradeen should
not exercise all the rights of a proprietor and clear the glen, as so
many glens had been cleared. This was the first question that the new
lord would have to decide. The humble tenants were all under notice to
leave, and indeed were subject to eviction as soon as their landlord
pleased. It was with a kind of horror that Walter listened to this
account of his new possibilities.

"Eviction!" he said; "do you mean the sort of thing that happens in
Ireland?" He held his breath in unfeigned dismay and repugnance. "I
thought there was nothing of the sort here."

"Ireland is one thing, and Scotland another," said the factor. "We are a
law-abiding people. No man will ever be shot down behind a hedge by a
Highlander: so if you should resolve to turn them out to-morrow, my
lord, ye need stand in no personal fear."

Walter put aside this somewhat contemptuous assurance with a wave of his
hand.

"I have been told of a great many things I could do," he said, "in this
last fortnight; but I never knew before that I could turn out a whole
village full of people if I chose, and make their houses desolate."

It was a new view altogether of his new powers. He could not help
returning in thought to all the prepossessions of his former
middle-class existence, where arbitrary power was unknown, and where a
mild, general beneficence towards "the poor" was the rule. He said, half
to himself, "What would my mother say?" and in the novelty of the idea,
half laughed. What a thrill it would send through the district
visitors, the managers of the soup kitchen, all the charitable people!
There suddenly came up before him a recollection of many a conversation
he had heard, and taken no note of--of consultations how to pay the rent
of a poor family here and there, how to stop a cruel landlord's mouth.
And that he should appear in the character of a cruel landlord! No doubt
it would have been easy to show that the circumstances were quite
different. But in the mean time the son of Mrs. Methven could not throw
off the traditions in which he had been brought up. He contemplated the
whole matter from a point of view altogether different even from that of
Mr. Shaw, the factor. Shaw was prepared to prove that on the whole the
poor crofters were not such bad tenants, and that sheep farms and deer
forests, though more easily dealt with, had some disadvantages too; for
there was Paterson of Inverchory that had been nearly ruined by a bad
lambing season, and had lost the half of his flock; and as for the
shootings, was there not the dreadful example before them of the moors
at Finlarig, where everything had been shot down, and the game fairly
exterminated by a set of fellows that either did not know what they were
doing, or else were making money of it, and not pleasure. The very veins
in Shaw's forehead swelled when he spoke of this.

"I would like to have had the ducking of him," he cried; "a man with a
grand name and the soul of a henwife, that swept out the place as if he
had done it with a broom, and all for the London market; grant me
patience! You will say," added Shaw, "that the thing to do at Inverchory
is to get a man with more capital now that John Paterson's tack is done;
and that there's few sportsmen like Sir John. That's all very true; but
it just shows there are risks to be run in all ways, and the poor folk
at Truach-Glas would never lead you into losses like that."

Walter, however, did not pay much attention even to this view. His mind
had not room at the moment for Paterson of Inverchory, who was behind
with the rent, or Sir John, who had devastated the moors. He did not get
beyond the primitive natural horror of what seemed to him an outrage of
all natural laws and kindness. He had not been a landowner long enough
to feel the sacred right of property. He turn the cottagers out of their
poor little homes for the sake of a few pounds more or less of which he
stood in no need? The very arguments against taking this step made him
angry. Could anybody suppose he could do it? he, Walter Methven! As for
the Erradeen business, and all this new affair altogether--good heavens,
if anybody thought he would purchase it by that! In short, the young
man, who was not born a grand seigneur, boiled up in righteous wrath,
and felt it high scorn and shame that it could be supposed of him that
he was capable, being rich, of oppressing the poor--which was the way
in which he put it, in his limited middle-class conditions of thought.

Mr. Shaw was half-gratified, half-annoyed by the interview. He said to
the minister with whom he stopped to dine, and who was naturally much
interested about the new young man, that assuredly the young fellow had
a great deal of good in him, but he was a trifle narrow in his way of
looking at a question, "which is probably just his English breeding,"
the factor said. "I would have put the Crofter question before him in
all its bearings; but he was just out of himself at the idea of
eviction--like what happened in Ireland, he said. I could not get him to
go into the philosophy of it. He just would not hear a word. Nothing of
the kind had ever come his way before, one could see, and he was just
horrified at the thought."

"I don't call that leemited, I call it Christian," the minister said,
"and I am not surprised he should have a horror of it. I will go and see
him in the morning, if you think it will be well taken, for I'm with him
in that, heart and soul."

"Yes, yes, that's all in your way," said Mr. Shaw; "but I am surprised
at it in a young man. There is a kind of innocence about it. But I would
not wonder after a little if he should change his mind, as others have
done."

"Do you form any theory in your own thoughts, Shaw," said the minister,
"as to what it is that makes them so apt to change?"

"Not I," cried the factor, with a shrug of his shoulders; and then he
added hurriedly, "you've given me a capital dinner, and that whisky is
just excellent: but I think I must be going my ways, for already it's
later than I thought."

Mr. Cameron, who was minister of the parish, was, like Walter, a
stranger to the district and its ways. He was a great antiquary and full
of curiosity about all the relics of the past, and he had an enlightened
interest in its superstitions too. But Shaw was a Loch Houran man. He
had a reverence for the traditions which of course he vowed he did not
believe, and though he was very ready to make this statement in his own
person he did not like to hear outsiders, as he called the rest of the
world, discussing them disrespectfully? So he desired his dog-cart to be
"brought round," and drove home in the clear, cold night, warm at his
heart, good man, because of the good news for the Crofters, but a little
dissatisfied in his mind that the new lord should be doing this simply
as a matter of sentiment, and not from a reasonable view of the
situation. "Provided even that he keeps of that mind," the factor said
to himself.

Walter subsided out of his just indignation when the business part of
the interview ended, and he came out to the open air to see Mr. Shaw
away.

"This must all be put in order," he said, as he accompanied his visitor
to the boat.

Shaw looked at him with a little curiosity mingled with a slight air of
alarm.

"Auchnasheen being so near," he said, "which is a very comfortable
place, there has never been much notice taken of the old castle."

"But I mean to take a great deal of notice of it," the young man said
with a laugh. "I shall have some of the antiquaries down and clear out
all the old places."

His laugh seemed to himself to rouse the echoes, but it called forth no
responsive sound from his companion, and he caught a glimpse of old
Macalister in the distance shaking his old head. This amused yet
slightly irritated Walter, in the sense of power which alternated with a
sense of novelty and unreality in his mind.

"So you object to that?" he said to the old man. "You don't like your
privileges invaded?"

"It's no that," said Macalister; "but ye'll never do it. I've a lang,
lang acquaintance with the place, and I've witnessed many a revolution,
if I may say sae. One was to pull down the auld wa's altogether; another
was to clean it a' out like you. But it's never been done. And it'll
never be done. I'm just as sure o' that as your young lordship is that
you have a' the power in your hands."

Walter turned away with a little disdain in his laugh. It was not worth
while arguing out the matter with Macalister. Who should prevent him
from doing what he liked with his old house? He could not but reflect
upon the curious contradictions with which he was beset. He was supposed
to be quite capable of turning out a whole village out of their homes,
and making them homeless and destitute; but he was not supposed capable
of clearing out the blocked-up passage and rooms of an old ruin! He
smiled with a kind of scornful indignation as he went up to his
sitting-room. By this time the afternoon had lost all light and colour.
It was not dark, but neither was it day. A greyness had come into the
atmosphere; the shadows were black, and had lost all transparency. The
two windows made two bars of a more distinct greyness in the room, with
a deep line of shade in the centre between, which was coloured, but
scarcely lighted up, by the fire. He could not but think with a sense of
relief that the three days which were all he believed that were
necessary for his stay at Kinloch Houran were half over at least.
Another night and then he would be free to go. He did not mean to go any
further than to Auchnasheen, which was exactly opposite to the island;
and then, with a smile creeping about the corners of his mouth, he said
to himself, that he could very well amuse himself for a few days, what
with the shooting and what with----

And it would be comfortable to get out of this place, where the air, he
could not tell why, seemed always insufficient. The wainscot, the dark
hangings, the heavy old walls, seemed to absorb the atmosphere. He threw
up the window to get a little air, but somehow the projecting masonry
of the old walls outside seemed to intercept it. He felt an oppression
in his breast, a desire to draw long breaths, to get more air into his
lungs. It was the same sensation which he had felt last night, and he
did not contemplate with any pleasure the idea of another long evening
alone in so strange an atmosphere. However, he must make the best of it.
He went to the bookshelf and got down again his _Trois Mousquetaires_.
When the candles were lighted, he would write a dutiful long letter to
his mother, and tell her all that had been going on about him,
especially that barbarous suggestion about the cottagers.

"Fancy me in the character of a rapacious landlord, turning a whole
community out of doors!" he said to himself, concocting the imaginary
letter, and laughed aloud with a thrill of indignation.

Next moment he started violently, and turned round with a wild rush of
blood to his head, and that sort of rallying and huddling together of
all the forces of his mind which one feels in a sudden catastrophe. It
was, however, no loud alarm that had sounded. It was the clear and
distinct vibration of a voice close to him, replying calmly to his
thought.

"Is there anything special in you to disqualify you for doing a
disagreeable duty?" some one said.

Walter had started back at the first sound, his heart giving a bound in
him of surprise--perhaps of terror. He had meant to take that great
chair by the fire as soon as he had taken his book from the shelf, so
that it must (he said to himself in instantaneous self-argument) have
been vacant then. It was not vacant now. A gentleman sat there, with his
face half turned towards the light looking towards the young man; his
attitude was perfectly easy, his voice a well-bred and cultivated voice.
There seemed neither hurry nor excitement about him. He had not the air
of a person newly entered, but rather of one who had been seated there
for some time at his leisure, observing what was going on. He lifted his
hand with a sort of deprecating yet commanding gesture.

"There is no occasion," he said, in his measured voice, "for alarm. I
have no intention of harming you, or any one. Indeed I am not aware that
I have any power of harm."

Never in his life before had Walter's soul been swept by such violent
sensations. He had an impulse of flight and of deadly overwhelming
terror, and then of sickening shame at his own panic. Why should he be
afraid? He felt dimly that this moment was the crisis of his life, and
that if he fled or retreated he was lost. He stood his ground, grasping
the back of a chair to support himself.

"Who are you?" he said.

"That is a searching question," said the stranger, with a smile. "We
will come to it by and by. I should like to know in the first place what
there is in you which makes it impossible to act with justice in certain
circumstances?"

The air of absolute and calm superiority with which he put this question
was beyond description.

Walter felt like a criminal at the bar.

"Who are you?" he repeated hoarsely. He stood with a curious sense of
being supported only by the grasp which he had taken of the back of the
chair, feeling himself a mere bundle of impulses and sensations, hardly
able to keep himself from flight, hardly able to keep from falling down
at the feet of this intruder, but holding to a sort of self-restraint by
his grasp upon the chair. Naturally, however, his nerves steadied as the
moments passed. The first extreme shock of surprise wore away. There was
nothing to alarm the most timid in the countenance upon which he gazed.
It was that of a handsome man who had scarcely turned middle age, with
grey but not white hair very thin on the forehead and temples, a high
delicate aquiline nose, and colourless complexion. His mouth closed
somewhat sternly, but had a faint melting of a smile about it, by
movements which were ingratiating and almost sweet. The chief thing
remarkable about the stranger, however, besides the extraordinary
suddenness of his appearance, was the perfect composure with which he
sat, like a man who not only was the most important person wherever he
went, but also complete master of the present scene. It was the young
man who was the intruder, not he.

"I will tell you presently who I am," he said. "In the mean time
explain to me why you should be horrified at a step which better men
than yourself take every day. Sit down." The stranger allowed himself to
smile with distinct intention, and then said in a tone of which it is
impossible to describe the refined mockery, "You are afraid?"

Walter came to himself with another sensible shock: his pride, his
natural spirit, a certain impulse of self-defence which never forsakes a
man, came to his aid. He was inclined to say "No," with natural denial
of a contemptuous accusation; but rallying more and more every moment,
answered with something like defiance, "Yes--or rather I am not afraid.
I am startled. I want to know how you come here, and who you are who
question me--in my own house."

"You are very sure that it is your own house? You mean to have it
restored and made into a piece of sham antiquity--if nothing prevents?"

"What can prevent? if I say it is to be done," cried the young man. His
blood seemed to curdle in his veins when he heard the low laugh with
which alone the stranger replied. "May I ask you--to withdraw or to tell
me who you are?" he said. His voice trembled in spite of himself. The
words left his lips quite sturdily, but quivered when they got into the
air, or so in the fantastic hurry of his mind he thought.

"If I refuse, what then?" the stranger said.

These two individuals confronted each other, defying each other, one
angry and nervous, the other perfectly calm. In such circumstances only
one result is sure: that he who retains his self-possession will have
the mastery. Walter felt himself completely baffled. He could not turn
out with violence a dignified and serious visitor, who assumed indeed an
intolerable superiority, and had come in without asking leave, but yet
was evidently a person of importance--if nothing more. He stared at him
for a moment, gradually becoming familiarized with the circumstances.
"You are master of the situation," he said, with a hard-drawn breath. "I
suppose I can do nothing but submit. But if politeness on my part
requires this of me, it requires on yours some information. Your name,
your object?"

They looked at each other once more for a moment.

"When you put it in that way, I have nothing to say," said the stranger,
with great courtesy; "but to acknowledge your right to require--"

At that moment the door opened hurriedly, and Symington came in.

"Your lordship will be wanting something?" he said. "I heard your voice.
Was it to light the lights? or would it be for tea, or----"

He gave a sort of scared glance round the room, and clung to the handle
of the door, but his eyes did not seem to distinguish the new-comer in
the failing twilight.

"I did not call; but you may light the candles," Walter said, feeling
his own excitement, which had been subsiding, spring up again, in his
curiosity to see what Symington's sensations would be.

The old man came in reluctantly. He muttered something uneasily in his
throat. "I would have brought a light if I had known. You might have
cried down the stairs. It's just out of all order to light the lights
this gate," he muttered. But he did not disobey. He went round the room
lighting one after another of the twinkling candles in the sconces. Now
and then he gave a scared and tremulous look about him; but he took no
further notice. The stranger sat quite composedly, looking on with a
smile while this process was gone through. Then Symington came up to the
table in front of which Walter still stood.

"Take a seat, my lord, take a seat," he said. "It's no canny to see you
standing just glowering frae ye, as we say in the country. You look just
as if you were seeing something. And take you your French fallow that
you were reading last night. It's better when you're by yourself in an
auld house like this, that has an ill-name, always to do something to
occupy your thoughts."

Walter looked at the stranger, who made a little gesture of intelligence
with a nod and smile; and old Symington followed the look, still with
that scared expression on his face.

"Your lordship looks for all the world as if you were staring at
something in that big chair; you must be careful to take no fancies in
your head," the old servant said. He gave a little nervous laugh, and
retreated somewhat quickly towards the door. "And talk no more to
yourself; it's an ill habit," he added, with one more troubled glance
round him as he closed the door.




CHAPTER XIII.


"And so you have made acquaintance with the young lord--tell us what
kind of person he is, Mrs. Forrester--tell us what you think of him,
Oona."

This was the unanimous voice which rose from the party assembled on the
second day after Walter's visit in the drawing-room in the Isle.

It was by no means out of the world, though to all appearances so far
removed from its commotions. A low cottage-mansion on the crest of a
rock, in the middle of Loch Houran, six miles from the railway at the
nearest spot on which you could land, and with a mile or so of water,
often rough, between you and the post-office, is it possible to imagine
a more complete seclusion? and yet it was not a seclusion at all. Oona
cared very little for the roughness of the water between the Isle and
the post-office, and Hamish nothing at all, and news came as constantly
and as regularly to the two ladies on their island as to any
newspaper--news from all quarters of the world. The mail days were
almost as important to them--in one way far more important than to any
merchant in his office. Budgets came and went every week, and both Oona
and her mother would be busy till late at night, the little gleam of
their lighted windows shining over the dark loch, that no one might miss
his or her weekly letter. These letters went up into the hill countries
in India, far away to the borders of Cashmere, round the world to
Australia, dropt midway into the coffee groves of Ceylon. When one of
the boys was quartered in Canada, to which there is a mail three times a
week, _that_ looked like next parish, and they thought nothing of it.
Neither need it be supposed that this was the only enlivenment of their
lives. The loch, though to the tourist it looks silent enough, was in
fact fringed by a number of houses in which the liveliest existence was
going on. The big new house at the point, which had been built by a
wealthy man of Glasgow, with every possible splendour, threw the
homelier houses of the native gentry a little into the shade; but nobody
bore him any malice, his neighbours being all so well aware that their
own "position" was known and unassailable, that his finery and his
costliness gave them no pang. They were all a little particular about
their "position:" but then nobody on the loch could make any mistake
about that, or for a moment imagine that Mr. Williamson from Glasgow
could rival the Scotts of Inverhouran, the Campbells of Ellermore, of
Glentruan, and half a dozen names beside, or the Forresters of
Eaglescairn, or the old Montroses, who, in fact, were a branch of the
Macnabs, and held their house on the Isle from that important but
extinct clan. This was so clearly understood that there was not an
exception made to the Williamsons, who knew their place, and were very
nice, and made a joke of their money, which was their social standing
ground. They had called their house, which was as big as a castle, in
the most unobtrusive manner, Birkenbraes, thus proving at once that they
were new people and Lowlanders: so much better taste, everybody said,
than any pretence at Highland importance or name. And this being once
acknowledged, the gentry of the loch adopted the Williamsons cordially,
and there was not a word to be said. But all the Campbells about, and
those excellent Williamsons, and a few families who were not Campbells,
yet belonged to Loch Houran, kept a good deal of life "on the loch,"
which was a phrase that meant in the district generally. And the Isle
was not a dull habitation, whatever a stranger might think. There was
seldom a day when a boat or two was not to be seen, sometimes for hours
together, drawn up upon the rocky beach. And the number of persons
entertained by Mrs. Forrester at the early dinner which was politely
called luncheon would have appeared quite out of proportion with her
means by any one unacquainted with Highland ways. There was trout from
the loch, which cost nothing except Hamish's time, a commodity not too
valuable, and there was grouse during the season, which cost still less,
seeing it came from all the sportsmen about. And the scones, of every
variety known in Scotland, which is a wide word, were home-made. So
that hospitality reigned, and yet Mrs. Forrester, who was a skilled
housekeeper, and Mysie, to whom the family resources were as her own,
and its credit still more precious than her own, managed somehow to make
ends meet.

On this particular afternoon the drawing-room with all its slim sofas
and old-fashioned curiosities was full of Campbells, for young Colin of
Ellermore was at home for his holiday, and it was a matter of course
that his sisters and Tom, the youngest, who was at home reading (very
little) for his coming examination, should bring him to the Isle. Colin
was rather a finer gentleman than flourished by nature upon the loch. He
had little company ways which made his people laugh; but when he had
been long enough at home to forget these he was very nice they all said.
He was in London, and though in trade, in "tea," which is rather
aristocratic, he was in society too.

"What kind of person is he, Mrs. Forrester? Tell us what you think of
him, Oona," was what this youthful band said.

"Well, my dears," said Mrs. Forrester, "he is just a very nice young
man. I don't know how I can describe him better, for young men
now-a-days are very like one another. They all wear the same
clothes--not but what," she added graciously, "I would know Colin
anywhere for a London gentleman with his things all so well made: but
Lord Erradeen was just in a kind of tweed suit, and nothing remarkable.
And his hands in his pockets, like all of ye. But he answered very
nicely when I spoke to him, and said he was more used to Walter Methven
than to any other name, and that to be neighbourlike would just be his
pleasure. It is not possible to be more pleasant and well-spoken than
the young man was."

"Oh, but I want a little more," cried Marjorie Campbell; "that tells
nothing; is he fair, or is he dark? is he tall or is he little--is he--"

"He couldn't be little," cried Janet, indignantly, "or he would not be a
hero: and I've made up my mind he's to be a hero. He'll have to do
something grand, but I don't know what: and to spoil it all with making
him small--"

"Heroes are all short," said Tom, "and all the great generals. You don't
want weedy, long-legged fellows like Colin and the rest of them. But you
know they all run to legs in our family, all but me."

"All this is irrelevant," said Colin with a smile which was somewhat
superior, "and you prevent Mrs. Forrester from giving us the masterly
characterisation which I know is on her lips."

"You are just a flatterer," said that simple lady, shaking her finger at
him; "there was no character coming from my lips. He is just a fine
simple-hearted young man. It appears he never knew what he was heir to,
and has no understanding even now, so far as I could learn, about the
Erradeens. He told me he had been a thoughtless lad, and, as well as I
could judge just a handful to his poor mother; but that all that was
over and gone."

"You are going too far, mamma," said Oona. "He said he had 'loafed.'
Loafing means no harm, does it, Colin? It means mere idleness, and no
more."

"Why should you think I am an authority on the subject?" said Colin. "I
never loaf: I go to the City every day. When I come back I have to keep
up society, so far as I can, and hunt about for invitations, otherwise I
should never be asked out. That is not loafing, it is hard work."

"Ask me, Oona," said young Tom; "I can tell you. It is the nicest thing
in the world. It means just doing nothing you are wanted to do, taking
your own way, watching nature, don't you know, and studying men, and
that sort of thing, which all the literary people say is better than
cramming. But only it does not pay in an exam."

"Oh, hold your tongue, Tommy," cried his sister. "You will fail again,
you know you will, and papa will be in despair. For you are not like
Colin, who is clever; you are good for nothing but soldiering, and next
year you will be too old."

"It's a shame," cried Tom hotly, "to make a fellow's commission depend
upon his spelling. What has spelling to do with it? But I'm going into
the militia, and then I shall be all right."

"And did Erradeen," said Colin to Mrs. Forrester, "let out any of the
secrets of his prison-house?"

"Bless me, he looked just as cheerful as yourself or even as Tom. There
was nothing miserable about him," Mrs. Forrester replied. "He had been
all the morning enjoying himself on the loch, and he came up and ate his
lunch just very hearty, and as happy as possible, with Oona and me. He
was just very like my own Ronald or Rob: indeed I think there's
something in his complexion and his way of holding himself that is very
like Rob; and took my opinion about the old castle, and what was the
meaning of the light on the tower. Indeed," added Mrs. Forrester with a
laugh, "I don't know if it is anything in me that draws people to tell
me their stories, but it is a very general thing, especially for young
persons, to ask for my advice."

"Because you're so kind," said Janet Campbell, who was romantic and
admired the old beauty.

"Because you're so clever," said Marjorie, who had a turn for satire.

Oona, whose ear was very quick for any supposed or possible ridicule,
such as her mother's little foibles occasionally laid her open to,
turned quickly round from Tom, leaving him speaking, and with a little
heightened colour interposed.

"We are opposite to the castle night and day," she said. "We cannot go
out to the door or gather a flower without seeing it; and at night there
it is in the moonlight. So naturally we are better acquainted with what
happens than anybody else can be."

"And do you really, really believe in the light?" said Marjorie.

Ellermore lay quite at the other end of the great loch, among another
range of hills, and was shut out from personal acquaintance with the
phenomena of Kinloch Houran. Colin gave a slight laugh, the faintest
possible indication of incredulity, to repeat with an increase of force
the doubt in his sister's tone. Oona was not without a healthful little
temper, which showed in the flash of her eye and the reddening of her
cheek. But she answered very steadily, with much suppressed feeling in
her tone--

"What do you call believing?" she said. "You believe in things you
cannot see? then I don't believe in the Kinloch Houran light. Because I
see it, and have seen it a hundred times as clear as day."

At this there was a little pause among the party of visitors, that pause
of half-amused superiority and scepticism, with which all believers in
the mysterious are acquainted. And then Marjorie, who was the boldest,
replied--

"Papa says it is a sort of phosphorescence, which is quite explainable:
and that where there is so much decaying matter, and so much damp, and
so much----"

"Faith, perhaps," said Colin, with that slight laugh; "but we are
outsiders, and we have no right to interfere with the doctrines of the
loch. Oona, give us that credit that we are outside the circle, and you
must not send us to the stake."

"Oh, my dears," said Mrs. Forrester, "and that is quite true. I have
heard very clever men say that there was nothing made so much difference
in what you believed as just the place you were born in, and that people
would go the stake, as you say, on one side of the border for a thing
they just laughed at on the other."

This, which was a very profound deliverance for Mrs. Forrester, she
carried off at the end with a pretty profession of her own disabilities.

"I never trust to my own judgment," she said. "But Oona is just very
decided on the subject, and so are all our people on the isle, and I
never put myself forward one way or another. Are you sure you will not
take a cup of tea before you go? a cup of tea is never out of place. It
is true that the day is very short, and Colin, after his town life, will
be out of the way of rowing. You are just going across by the ferry, and
then driving? Well, that is perhaps the best way. And in that case there
is plenty of time for a cup of tea. Just ring the bell, or perhaps it
will be safer, Oona, if you will cry upon Mysie and tell her to lose no
time. Just the tea, and a few of the cream scones, and a little cake.
She need not spread the table as there is so little time."

The interlude of the tea and the cream scones made it late before the
visitors got away. Their waggonette was visible waiting for them on the
road below Auchnasheen, and five minutes were enough to get them
across, so that they dallied over this refreshment with little thought
of the waning afternoon. Then there was a little bustle to escort them
down to the beach, to see them carefully wrapped up, to persuade
Marjorie that another "hap" would be desirable, and Janet that her
"cloud" should be twisted once more about her throat. The sunset was
waning when at last they were fairly off, and the loch lay in a still,
yellow radiance, against which every tree and twig, every rock and
stone, stood out dark in full significance of outline. It was cold, and
Mrs. Forrester shivered in her furred cloak.

"The shore looks so near that you could touch it," she said; "there will
be rain to-morrow, Oona."

"What does it matter about to-morrow?" cried the girl; "it's beautiful
to-night. Go in, mamma, to the fireside; but I will stay here and see
them drive away."

The mother consented to this arrangement, which was so natural; but a
moment afterwards came back and called from the porch, where she stood
sheltered from the keen and eager air.

"Oona! Come in, my dear. That Colin one, with his London ways, will
think you are watching him."

There was something sublime in the fling of Oona's head, and the
erection of her slim figure, as she rejected the possibility.

"Watching _him_!" She was too proud even to permit herself to resent it.

"Ah! but you never can tell what a silly lad may take into his head,"
said Mrs. Forrester; and, having thus cleared her conscience, she went
in and took off her cloak, and shut the drawing-room door, and made
herself very comfortable in her own cosy chair in the ruddy firelight.
She laid her head back upon the soft cushions and looked round her with
a quiet sense of content. Everything was so comfortable, so pretty and
homelike; and by-and-by she permitted herself, for ten minutes or so, to
fall into a soft oblivion. "I just closed my eyes," was Mrs. Forrester's
little euphemism to herself.

Meanwhile Oona stood and looked at sky and sea and shore. The soft plash
of the oars came through the great stillness, and, by-and-by, there was
the sound of the boat run up upon the shingle, and the noise of the
disembarkation, the voices swelling out in louder tones and laughter. As
they waved their hands in a final good-night to the watcher on the isle
before they drove away, the young people, as Mrs. Forrester had said,
laughed and assured Colin that it was not for them Oona stood out in the
evening chill. But, as a matter of fact, there was nothing so little in
Oona's mind. She was looking round her with that sort of exaltation
which great loneliness and stillness and natural beauty so naturally
give: the water gleaming all round, the sky losing its orange glow and
melting into soft primrose tints the colour of the daffodil.

    "The holy time is quiet as a nun
        Breathless with adoration."

All the sensations that belong to such a moment are exquisite; a
visionary elevation above the earth and all things earthly, a soft
pensiveness, an elation, yet wistful longing of the soul. Before her the
old castle of Kinloch Houran lay gloomy and dark on the edge of the
water. If she thought of anything it was of the young neighbour, to whom
she felt so strangely near in wonder and sympathy. Who might be with him
at that moment in the ghostly quiet? What thoughts, what suggestions,
were being placed before him? Oona put her hands together, and breathed
into the still air a wish of wondering and wistful pity which was almost
a prayer. And then, rousing herself with a slight shiver and shake, she
turned and went in, shutting out behind her the lingering glory of the
water and sky.

Mysie was lighting the candles when she went in, and Mrs. Forrester had
opened her eyes. Two candles on the mantelpiece and two on the table
were all the ladies allowed themselves, except on great occasions, when
the argand lamp, which was the pride of the household, was lighted in
honour of a visitor. The warmth of this genial interior was very welcome
after the cold of the twilight, and Oona brought her work to the table,
and the book from which her mother was in the habit of reading aloud.
Mrs. Forrester thought she improved her daughter's mind by these
readings; but, to tell the truth, Oona's young soul, with all the world
and life yet before it, often fled far enough away while her mother's
soft voice, with the pretty tricks of elocution, which were part of her
old-fashioned training, went on. Never was there a prettier indoor
scene. In the midst of that great solitude of woods and water, the
genial comfort of this feminine room, so warm, so softly lighted, so
peaceful and serene, struck the imagination like a miracle. Such a
tranquil retirement would have been natural enough safely planted amid
the safeguards and peaceful surroundings of a village: but in being here
there was a touching incongruity. The little play of the mother's voice
as she read with innocent artifice and the simple vanity which belonged
to her, the pretty work, of no great use, with which the girl was busy,
both heightened the sense of absolute trust with which they lived in the
bosom of nature. A sudden storm, one could not but think, might have
swept them away into the dark gleaming water that hemmed them round.
They were not afraid: they were as safe as in a citadel. They were like
the birds in their nests; warm and soft, though in the heart of Loch
Houran. Mrs. Forrester was reading a historical novel, one of the kind
which she thought so good for improving Oona's mind; amusing, yet
instructing her. But Oona's mind, refusing to be improved, was giving
only a mechanical attention. It was away making a little pilgrimage of
wonder about the mystic house which was so near them, longing to know,
and trying to divine, what was going on there.

But when the afternoon closes in at four o'clock, and the candles are
lighted shortly after, the night is long. It seemed endless on this
occasion, because of the too early tea, which Mrs. Forrester had thought
it would be "just a farce" to produce again at six o'clock, their usual
hour; and from half-past four till nine, when the small and light repast
known in the house under the pleasantly indefinite name of "the tray"
made its appearance, is a long time. There had been two or three
interruptions of a little talk, and the book had been laid down and
resumed again, and Oona's work had dropped two or three times upon her
knee, when Mysie, coming in, announced that it was just an uncommon fine
night, though all the signs (including the glass, which, however, does
not always count in the west of Scotland) pointed to rain, and that
Hamish was going to take advantage of the moonlight to do an errand at
the village above Auchnasheen. Would Miss Oona like to go? It was just
awfu' bonny, and with plenty of haps she could take no harm, Mysie said.
To see how the girl sprang from her seat was a proof of the gentle
tedium that had stolen upon her soul.

"But, my dear, it will be cold, cold. I am afraid of you catching cold,
Oona," Mrs. Forrester cried.

"Oh, mother, no. I never catch cold; and besides, if I did, what would
it matter? Tell him I'm coming, Mysie; tell him to wait for me. I'll put
on my thick ulster, or the fur cloak, if you like."

"Certainly, the fur cloak, Oona. I will not hear of it without that.
But, my dear, just think, Hamish will have to leave you in the boat
while he goes to the village; and what would you do, Oona, if there is
any one on the road?"

"Do, mamma? Look at them, to see if I knew them. And, if it was a
stranger, just sit still and say nothing."

"But, my dear! It might be somebody that would speak to you, and--annoy
you, Oona."

"There is no person up the loch or down the loch that would dare to do
that, mem," said Mysie, composedly.

"How can we tell? It might be some tourist or gangrel body."

"Annoy _me_!" said Oona, as if indeed this suggestion was too
far-fetched for possibility. "If anything so ridiculous happened I would
just push out into the loch. Don't you trouble, mother, about me."

Mrs. Forrester got up to envelop her child's throat in fold after fold
of the fleecy white "cloud." She shook her head a little, but she was
resigned, for such little controversies occurred almost daily. The
evening had changed when Oona ran lightly down the bank to the boat in
which Hamish was waiting. Everything about was flooded with the keen,
clear white moonlight, which in its penetrating chilly fashion was
almost more light than day. The loch was shining like silver, but with a
blackness behind the shining, and all the shadows were like midnight
profound in inky gloom. The boat seemed to hang suspended in the keen
atmosphere rather than to float, and the silence was shrill, and seemed
to cut into the soul. It was but a few minutes across the cold white
glittering strait that lay between the isle and the mainland. Hamish
jumped out with an exaggerated noise upon the slippery shingle, and
fastened the boat with a rattle of the ring to which it was attached,
which woke echoes all around both from land and water, everything under
the mingled influence of winter and night being so still. A chance
spectator would have thought that the mother had very good cause for her
alarm, and that to sit there in the rough boat absolutely alone, like
the one living atom in a world all voiceless and asleep, was not a
cheerful amusement for a girl. But Oona had neither fear nor sense of
strangeness in an experience which she had gone through so often. She
called out lightly to Hamish to make haste, and looked after him as he
set out on the white road, the peculiarities of his thick-set figure
coming out drolly in the curious dab of foreshortened shadow flung upon
the road by his side. She laughed at this to herself, and the laugh ran
all about with a wonderful cheerful thrill of the silence. How still it
was! When her laugh ceased, there was nothing but the steps of Hamish in
all the world--and by and by even the steps ceased, and that stillness
which could be felt settled down. There was not a breath astir, not
enough to cause the faintest ripple on the beach. Now and then a pebble
which had been pushed out of its place by the man's foot toppled over,
and made a sound as if something great had fallen. Otherwise not a
breath was stirring; the shadows of the fir-trees looked as if they
were gummed upon the road. And Oona held her breath; it seemed almost
profane to disturb the intense and perfect quiet. She knew every hue of
every rock, and the profile of every tree. And presently, which no doubt
was partly because of this perfect acquaintance, and partly because of
some mesmeric consciousness in the air, such as almost invariably
betrays the presence of a human being, her eyes fixed upon one spot
where the rock seemed higher than she had been used to. Was it possible
that somebody was there? She changed her place to look more closely; and
so fearless was the girl that she had nearly jumped out of the boat to
satisfy herself whether it was a man or a rock. But just when she was
about making up her mind to do so, the figure moved, and came down
towards the beach. Oona's heart gave a jump; several well-authenticated
stories which she had heard from her childhood came into her mind with a
rush. She took the end of the rope softly in her hand so as to be able
to detach it in a moment. To row back to the isle was easy enough.

"Is it you, Miss Forrester?" a voice said.

Oona let go the rope, and her heart beat more calmly. "I might with more
reason cry out, Is it you, Lord Erradeen? for if you are at the old
castle you are a long way from home, and I am quite near."

"I am at Auchnasheen," he said. A great change had come over his tone;
it was very grave; no longer the airy voice of youth which had jested
and laughed on the Isle. He came down and stood with his hand on the
bow of the boat. He looked very pale, very serious, but that might be
only the blackness of the shadows and the whiteness of the light.

"Did you ever see so spiritual a night?" said Oona. "There might be
anything abroad; not fairies, who belong to summer, but serious things."

"Do you believe then in--ghosts?" he said.

"Ghosts is an injurious phrase. Why should we call the poor people so
who are only--dead?" said Oona. "But that is a false way of speaking
too, isn't it? for it is not because they are dead, but living, that
they come back."

"I am no judge," he said, with a little shiver. "I never have thought on
the subject. I suppose superstition lingers longer up among the
mountains."

"Superstition!" said Oona, with a laugh. "What ugly words you use!"

Once more the laugh seemed to ripple about, and break the solemnity of
the night. But young Lord Erradeen was as solemn as the night, and his
countenance was not touched even by a responsive smile. His gravity
produced upon the girl's mind that feeling of visionary panic and
distrust which had not been roused by the external circumstances. She
felt herself grow solemn too, but struggled against it.

"Hamish has gone up with some mysterious communication to the
game-keeper," she said; "and in these long nights one is glad of a
little change. I came out with him to keep myself from going to sleep."

Which was not perhaps exactly true: but there had arisen a little
embarrassment in her mind, and she wanted something to say.

"And I came out--" he said; then paused. "The night is not so ghostly as
the day," he added, hurriedly; "nor dead people so alarming as the
living."

"You mean that you disapprove of our superstitions, as you call them,"
said Oona. "Most people laugh and believe a little; but I know some are
angry and think it wrong."

"I----angry! That was not what I meant. I meant----It is a strange
question which is living and which is----To be sure, you are right, Miss
Forrester. What is dead cannot come in contact with us, only what is
living. It is a mystery altogether."

"You are not a sceptic then?" said Oona. "I am glad of that."

"I am not----anything. I don't know how to form an opinion. How lovely
it is, to be sure," he burst out all at once; "especially to have some
one to talk to. That is the great charm."

"If that is all," said Oona, trying to speak cheerfully, "you will soon
have dozens of people to talk to, for everybody in the county--and that
is a wide word--is coming to call. They will arrive in shoals as soon as
they know."

"I think I shall go--in a day or two," he said.

At this moment the step of Hamish, heard far off through the great
stillness, interrupted the conversation. It had been as if they two were
alone in this silent world; and the far-off step brought in a third and
disturbed them. They were silent, listening as it came nearer and
nearer, the sound growing with every repetition. When Hamish appeared in
the broad white band of road coming from between the shadows of the
trees the young man dropped his hand from the bow of the boat. He had
not spoken again, nor did Oona feel herself disposed to speak. Hamish
quickened his pace when he saw another figure on the beach.

"Ye'll no' have been crying upon me, Miss Oona," he said, with a
suspicious look at the stranger.

"Oh no, Hamish!" cried Oona, cheerfully. "I have not been wearying at
all, for this is Lord Erradeen that has been so kind as to come and keep
me company."

"Oh, it'll be my Lord Erradeen?" said Hamish, with a curious look into
Walter's face.

Then there was a repetition of the noises with which the still loch
rang, the rattle of the iron ring, the grating of the bow on the shingle
as she was pushed off. Hamish left no time for leave-taking. There were
a few yards of clear water between the boat and the beach when Oona
waved her hand to the still figure left behind. "My mother will like to
see you to-morrow," she cried, with an impulse of sympathy. "Good
night."

He took his hat off, and waved his hand in reply, but said nothing, and
stood motionless till they lost sight of him round the corner of the
isle. Then Hamish, who had been exerting himself more than usual, paused
a little.

"Miss Oona," he said, "yon will maybe be the young lord, but maybe no. I
would not be speaking to the first that comes upon the loch side----"

"Oh, if you are beginning to preach propriety----" the girl cried.

"It'll not be propriety, it will just be that they're a family that is
not canny. Who will tell you if it's one or if it's the other? Did ye
never hear the tale of the leddy that fell off the castle wall?"

"But this is not the castle," cried Oona, "and I know him very well--and
I'm sorry for him, Hamish. He looks so changed."

"Oh, what would you do being sorry for him? He has nothing ado with
us--nothing ado with us," Hamish said.

And how strange it was to come in again from that brilliant whiteness
and silence--the ghostly loch, the visionary night--into the ruddy room
full of firelight and warmth, all shut in, sheltered, full of
companionship.

"Come away, come away to the fire; you must be nearly frozen, Oona, and
I fear ye have caught your death of cold," her mother said.

Oona remembered with a pang the solitary figure on the water's edge, and
wondered if he were still standing there forlorn. A whole chapter of
life seemed to have interposed between her going and coming, though she
had been but half an hour away.




CHAPTER XIV.


Two days after this night scene there was a gathering such as was of
weekly occurrence in the Manse of Loch Houran parish. The houses were
far apart, and those of the gentry who were old-fashioned enough to
remain for the second service, were in the habit of spending the short
interval between in the minister's house, where an abundant meal, called
by his housekeeper a cold collation, was spread in the dining-room for
whosoever chose to partake. As it was the fashion in the country to dine
early on Sunday, this repast was but sparingly partaken of, and most of
the company, after the glass of wine or milk, the sandwich or biscuit,
which was all they cared to take, would sit round the fire in the
minister's library, or examine his books, or, what was still more
prized, talk to him of their own or their neighbours' affairs. The
minister of Loch Houran was one of those celibates who are always
powerful ecclesiastically, though the modern mind is so strongly opposed
to any artificial manufacture of them such as that which the Church of
Rome in her wisdom has thought expedient. We all know the arguments in
favour of a married clergy, but those on the other side of the question
it is the fashion to ignore. He who has kept this natural distinction by
fair means, and without compulsion, has however an unforced advantage of
his own which the most Protestant and the most matrimonial of polemics
will scarcely deny. He is more safe to confide in, being one, not two.
He is more detached and individual; it is more natural that all the
world about him should have a closer claim upon the man who has no
nearer claims to rival those of his spiritual children. Mr. Cameron was
one of this natural priesthood. If he had come to his present calm by
reason of passion and disappointment in his past, such as we obstinately
and romantically hope to have founded the tranquillity of subdued,
sunny, and sober age, nobody could tell. An old minister may perhaps be
let off more easily in this respect than an old monk; but he was the
friend and consoler of everybody; the depositary of all the secrets of
the parish; the one adviser of whose disinterestedness and secrecy every
perplexed individual was sure. He did all that man could do to be
absolutely impartial and divide himself, as he divided his provisions,
among his guests as their needs required. But flesh is weak, and Mr.
Cameron could not disown one soft place in his heart for Oona Forrester,
of which that young person was quite aware. Oona was his pupil and his
favourite, and he was, if not her spiritual director, which is a
position officially unknown to his Church, at least her confidant in all
her little difficulties, which comes to much the same thing: and this
notwithstanding the fact that Mrs. Forrester attended the parish church
under protest, and prided herself on belonging to the Scottish Episcopal
community, the Church of the gentry, though debarred by providence from
her privileges. Mrs. Forrester at this moment, with her feet on the
fender, was employed in bewailing this sad circumstance with another
landed lady in the same position; but Oona was standing by the old
ministers side, with her hand laid lightly within his arm, which was a
pretty way she had when she was with her oldest friend. It did not
interfere with this attitude, that he was exchanging various remarks
with other people, and scarcely talking to Oona at all. He looked down
upon her from time to time with a sort of proud tenderness, as her
grandfather might have done. It pleased the old man to feel the girl's
slim small fingers upon his arm. And as there were no secrets discussed
in this weekly assembly her presence interrupted nothing. She added her
word from time to time, or the still readier comment of smiles and
varying looks that changed like the Highland sky outside, and were never
for two minutes the same. It was not, however, till Mr. Shaw, the
factor, came in, that the easy superficial interest of all the parish
talk quickened into something more eager and warm in her sympathetic
countenance. Shaw's ruddy face was full of care; this was indeed its
usual expression, an expression all the more marked from the blunt and
open simplicity of its natural mood to which care seemed alien. The
puckers about his hazel grey eyes, the lines on his forehead which
exposure to the air had reddened rather than browned, were more than
usually evident. Those honest eyes seemed to be remonstrating with the
world and fate. They had an appearance half-comic to the spectator, but
by no means comic to their own consciousness of grieved interrogation as
if asking every one on whom they turned, "Why did you do it?" "Why did
you let it be done?" It was this look which he fixed upon the minister,
who indeed was most innocent of all share in the cause of his trouble.

"I told you," he said, "the other day, about the good intentions of our
young lord. I left various things with him to be settled that would bide
no delay--things that had been waiting for the late Lord Erradeen from
day to day. And all this putting off has been bad, bad. There's those
poor crofters that will have to be put out of their bits of places
to-morrow. I can hold off no longer without his lordship's warrant. And
not a word from him--not a word!" cried the good man, with that
appealing look, to which the natural reply was, It is not my fault. But
the minister knew better, and returned a look of sympathy, shaking his
white head.

"What has become of the young man? they tell me he has left the castle."

"He is not far off--he is at Auchnasheen; but he is just like all the
rest, full of goodwill one day, and just inaccessible the next--just
inaccessible!" repeated the factor. "And what am I to do? I am just wild
to have advice from somebody. What am I to do?"

"Can you not get at him to speak to him?" the minister asked.

"I have written to know if he will see me. I have said I was waiting an
answer, but there's no answer comes. They say he's on the hill all day,
though the keepers know nothing about his movements, and he does not
even carry a gun. What am I to do? He sees nobody; two or three have
called, but cannot get at him. He's always out--he's never there. That
old Symington goes about wringing his hands. What says he? he says,
'This is the worst of a'; this is the worst of a'. He's just got it on
him----'"

"What does that mean?"

"Can I tell what that means? According to the old wives it is the weird
of the Methvens; but you don't believe such rubbish, nor do I. It has,
maybe, something to do with the drainage, or the water, or the sanitary
arrangements, one way or the other!" cried the factor with a harsh and
angry laugh.

Then there was a momentary pause, and the hum of the other people's talk
came in, filling up with easier tones of conversation the somewhat
strained feeling of this: "He's a good shot and a fine oar, and just a
deevil for spunk and courage: and yet because he's a little vague in his
speaking!" "But, I say, we must put up with what we can get, and though
it's a trial the surplice is not just salvation." "And it turned out to
be measles, and not fever at all, and nothing to speak of; so we just
cheated the doctors." These were the broken scraps that came in to fill
up the pause.

"I saw Lord Erradeen the other night," said Oona, whose light grasp on
the old minister's arm had been tightening and slackening all through
this dialogue, in the interest she felt. Both of the gentlemen turned to
look at her inquiringly, and the girl blushed--not for any reason, as
she explained to herself indignantly afterwards, but because it was a
foolish way she had; but somehow the idea suggested to all their minds
was not without an effect upon the events of her after-life.

"And what did he say to you? and what is he intending? and why does he
shut himself up and let all the business hang suspended like yon fellow
Machomet's coffin?" cried the factor, with a guttural in the prophet's
name which was due to the energy of his feelings. He turned upon Oona
those remonstrating eyes of his, as if he had at last come to the final
cause of all the confusion, and meant to demand of her, without any
quibbling, an answer to the question, Why did you do it? on the spot.

"Indeed, he said very little to me, Mr. Shaw. He looked like a ghost,
and he said--he was going away in a day or two."

Sudden reflection in the midst of what she was saying made it apparent
to Oona that it was unnecessary to give all the details of the
interview. Mr. Cameron, for his part, laid his large, soft old hand
tenderly upon hers which was on his arm, and said, in the voice which
always softened when he addressed her--

"And where would that be, my bonnie Oona, that you met with Lord
Erradeen?"

"It was on the beach below Auchnasheen," said Oona, with an almost
indignant frankness, holding her head high, but feeling, to her anger
and distress, the blush burn upon her cheek. "Hamish had some errand on
shore, and I went with him in the boat. I was waiting for him, when some
one came down from the road and spoke to me. I was half-frightened, for
I did not know any one was there. It was Lord Erradeen."

"And what?--and why?--and--"

The factor was too much disturbed to form his questions reasonably, even
putting aside the evident fact that Oona had no answer to give him. But
at this moment the little cracked bell began to sound, which was the
warning that the hour of afternoon service approached. The ladies rose
from their seats round the fire, the little knots of men broke up.
"Oona, my dear, will ye come and tie my bonnet? I never was clever at
making a bow," said Mrs. Forrester; and the minister left his guests to
make his preparations for church. Mr. Shaw felt himself left in the
lurch. He kept hovering about Oona with a quick decision in his own
mind, which was totally unjustified by any foundation; he went summarily
through a whole romance, and came to its conclusion in the most
matter-of-fact and expeditious way. "If that comes to pass now!" he said
to himself. "_She's_ no Me'ven; there's no weird on her; he can give her
the management of the estates, and all will go well. She has a head upon
her shoulders, though she is nothing but a bit girlie--and there will be
me to make everything plain!" Such was the brief epitome of the
situation that passed in the factor's mind. He was very anxious to get
speech of Oona on the way to church, and it is to be feared that Mr.
Cameron's excellent afternoon discourse (which many people said was
always his best, though as it was listened to but drowsily the fact may
be doubted) made little impression upon Shaw, though he was a serious
man, who could say his say upon religious subjects, and was an elder,
and had sat in the Assembly in his day. He had his opportunity when the
service was over, when the boats were being pushed off from the beach,
and the carriages got under way, for those who had far to go. Mrs.
Forrester had a great many last words to say before she put on her
furred mantle and her white cloud, and took her place in the boat; and
Mysie, who stood ready with the mantle to place it on her mistress's
shoulders, had also her own little talks to carry on at that genial
moment when all the parish--or all the loch, if you like the expression
better--stood about exchanging friendly greetings and news from outlying
places. While all the world was thus engaged, Oona fell at last into the
hands of the factor, and became his prey.

"Miss Oona," he said, "if ye will accord me a moment, I would like well,
well, to know what's your opinion about Lord Erradeen."

"But I have no opinion!" cried Oona, who had been prepared for the
attack. She could not keep herself from blushing (so ridiculous! but I
will do it, she said to herself, as if that "I" was an independent
person over whom she had no control), but otherwise she was on her
guard. "How could I have any opinion when I have only seen Lord Erradeen
twice--thrice?" she added, with a heightening of the blush, as she
remembered the adventure of the coach.

"Twice--thrice; but that gives you facilities--and ladies are so
quick-witted. I've seen him but once," said the factor. "I was much
taken with him, that is the truth, and was so rash as to think our
troubles were over; but here has everything fallen to confusion in the
old way. Miss Oona, do you use your influence if you should see his
lordship again."

"But, Mr. Shaw, there is no likelihood that I shall see him again--and I
have no influence."

"Oh no, you'll not tell me that," said the factor, shaking his head,
with a troubled smile. "Them that are like you, young and bonnie, have
always influence, if they like to use it. And as for seeing him again,
he will never leave the place, Miss Oona, without going at least to bid
you good-bye."

"Lord Erradeen may come to take leave of my mother," said Oona, with
dignity. "It is possible, though he did not say so; but even if he
does, what can I do? I know nothing about his affairs, and I have no
right to say anything to him--no right, more than any one else who has
met him three times."

"Which is just no person--except yourself, so far as I can learn," the
factor said.

"After all, when you come to think of it, it is only once I have seen
him," said Oona, "for the night on the loch was by chance, and the day
on the coach I did not know him; so that after all I have only, so to
speak, seen him once, and how could I venture to speak to him about
business? Oh no, that is out of the question. Yes, mamma, I am quite
ready. Mr. Shaw wishes, if Lord Erradeen comes to bid us good-bye that
we should tell him----"

"Yes?" said Mrs. Forrester, briskly, coming forward, while Mysie
arranged around her her heavy cloak. "I am sure I shall be very glad to
give Lord Erradeen any message. He is a very nice young man, so far as I
can judge; people think him very like my Ronald, Mr. Shaw. Perhaps it
has not struck you? for likenesses are just one of the things that no
two people see. But we are very good friends, him and me: he is just a
nice simple gentlemanly young man--oh, very gentlemanly. He would never
go away without saying good-bye. And I am sure I shall be delighted to
give him any message. That will do, Mysie, that will do; do not
suffocate me with that cloak. Dear me, you have scarcely left me a
corner to breathe out of. But, Mr. Shaw, certainly--any message----"

"I am much obliged to you; but I will no doubt see Lord Erradeen myself,
and I'll not trouble a lady about business," said the factor. He cast a
look at Oona, in which with more reason than usual his eyes said, How
could you do it? And the girl was a little compunctious. She laughed,
but she felt guilty, as she took her mother's arm to lead her to the
boat. Mrs. Forrester had still a dozen things to say, and waved her
hands to the departing groups on every side, while Shaw, half-angry,
stood grimly watching the embarkation.

"There are the Kilhouran Campbells driving away, and I have not had a
word with them: and there is old Jess, who always expects to be taken
notice of: and the Ellermore folk, that I had no time to ask about Tom's
examination: and Mr. Cameron himself, that I never got a chance of
telling how well I liked the sermon. Dear me, Oona, you are always in
such a hurry! And take care now, take care; one would think you took me
for your own age. But I am not wanting to be hoisted up either, as if I
were too old to know how to step into a boat. Good-bye, Mr. Shaw,
good-bye," Mrs. Forrester added cheerfully, waving her hand as she got
herself safely established in the bow, and Hamish, not half so
picturesque as usual in his Sunday clothes, pushed off the boat.
"Good-bye, and I'll not forget your message." She even kissed her hand,
if not to him, to the parish in general, in the friendliness of her
heart.

Mr. Shaw had very nearly shaken his clenched fist in reply. Old fool he
called her in his heart, and even launched an expletive (silently) at
Oona, "the heartless monkey," who had betrayed him to her mother. He
went back to the manse with Mr. Cameron, when all the little talks and
consultations were over and everybody gone, and once more poured out the
story of his perplexities.

"If I do not hear from him, I'll have to proceed to extremities
to-morrow, and it is like to break my heart," he said. "For the poor
folk have got into their heads that I will stand their friend whatever
happens, and they are just keeping their minds easy."

"But, man, they should pay their rents," said Mr. Cameron, who, when all
was said that could be said in his favour, was not a Loch Houran man.

"Rents! where would you have them get the siller? Their bit harvest has
failed, and the cows are dry for want of fodder. If they have a penny
laid by they must take it to live upon. They have enough ado to live,
without thinking of rents."

"But in that case, Shaw," said the minister, gravely--"you must not
blame me for saying so, it's what all the wise men say--would they not
do better to emigrate, and make a new start in a new country, where
there's plenty of room?"

"Oh, I know that argument very well," said Shaw, with a snort of
indignation. "I have it all at my fingers' ends. I've preached it many a
day. But what does it mean, when all's done? It means just sheep or it
means deer, and a pickle roofless houses standing here and there, and
not a soul in the glen. There was a time even when I had just an
enthusiasm for it--and I've sent away as many as most. But after all,
they're harmless, God-fearing folk; the land is the better of them, and
none the worse. There's John Paterson has had great losses with his
sheep, and there's yon English loon that had the shooting, and shot
every feather on the place; both the one and the other will be far more
out of his lordship's pocket than my poor bit crofters. I laid all that
before him; and he showed a manful spirit, that I will always say. No,
minister, it was not to argue the case from its foundations that I came
to you. I know very well what the economists say. I think they're not
more than half right, though they're so cocksure. But if you'll tell me
what I should do----"

This, however, was what Mr. Cameron was not capable of. He said, after
an interval, "I will go to-morrow and try if I can see him, if you think
it would not be ill taken."

"To-morrow is the last day," said the factor gloomily: and after a
little while he followed the example of all the others, and sent for his
dog-cart and drove himself away. But a more anxious man did not traverse
any road in Great Britain on that wintry afternoon: and bitter thoughts
were in his heart of the capricious family, whose interests were in his
hands, and to whom he was almost too faithful a servant. "Oh, the weird
of the Me'vens!" said Mr. Shaw to himself, "if they were not so taken up
with themselves and took more thought for other folk we would hear
little of any weirds. I have no time for weirds. I have just my work to
do and I do it. The Lord preserve us from idleness, and luxury, and
occupation with ourselves!" Here the good man in his righteous wrath and
trouble and disappointment was unjust, as many a good man has been
before.

When Hamish had pushed off from the beach, and the little party were
afloat, Oona repented her of that movement of mingled offence and
_espièglerie_ which had made her transfer the factor's appeal from
herself to her mother: and it was only then that Mrs. Forrester
recollected how imperfect the communication was. "Bless me," Mrs.
Forrester said, "I forgot to ask after all what it was he wanted me to
say. That was a daft like thing, to charge me with a message and never
to tell me what it was. And how can I tell my Lord Erradeen! I suppose
you could not put back, Hamish, to inquire?--but there's nobody left
yonder at the landing that I can see, so it would be little use. How
could you let me do such a silly thing, Oona, my dear?"

"Most likely, mamma, we shall not see Lord Erradeen and so no harm will
be done."

"Not see Lord Erradeen! Do ye think then, Oona, that he has no manners,
or that he's ignorant how to behave? I wonder what has made ye take an
ill-will at such a nice young man. There was nothing in him to justify
it, that I could see. And to think I should have a message for him and
not know what it is! How am I to give him the message when it was never
given to me? I just never heard of such a dilemma. Something perhaps of
importance, and me charged to give it, and not to know what it was!"

"Maybe, mem," said Mysie from the other end of the boat, with that
serene certainty that her mistress's affairs were her own, which
distinguishes an old Scotch family retainer, "maybe Miss Oona will ken."

"Oh, yes, I suppose I know," said Oona, reluctantly. "It is something
about the cotters at the Truach-Glas, who will be turned out to-morrow
unless Lord Erradeen interferes; but why should we be charged with that?
We are very unlikely to see Lord Erradeen, and to-morrow is the day."

This piece of information caused a great excitement in the little party.
The cotters to be turned out!

"But no, no, that was just to frighten you. He will never do it," said
Mrs. Forrester, putting on a smile to reassure herself after a great
flutter and outcry. "No, no; it must just have been to give us all a
fright. John Shaw is a very decent man. I knew his father perfectly
well, who was the minister at Rannoch, and a very good preacher. No, no,
Oona, my dear--he could never do it; and yon fine lad that is so like
my Ronald (though you will not see it) would never do it. You need not
look so pale. It is just his way of joking with you. Many a man thinks
it pleasant to tell a story like that to a lady just to hear what she
says."

"Eh, but it's ill joking with poor folks' lives," cried Mysie, craning
over Hamish's shoulder to hear every word.

"It's none joking," said Hamish, gruffly, between the sweep of his oars.

"It's none joking, say ye? Na, it's grim earnest, or I'm sair mistaken,"
said the woman. "Eh, Miss Oona, but I would gang round the loch on my
bare feet, Sabbath though it be, rather than no give a message like
yon."

"How can we do it?" cried Oona; "how are we to see Lord Erradeen? I am
sure he will not come to call; and even if he did come to-morrow in the
afternoon it would be too late."

"My dear," said Mrs. Forrester, "we will keep a look out in the morning.
Hamish will just be fishing at the point, and hail him as soon as he
sees him. For it was in the morning he came before."

"Oh, mem!" cried Mysie, "but would you wait for that? It's ill to lippen
to a young man's fancy. He might be late of getting up (they're mostly
lazy in the morning), or he might be writing his letters, or he might be
seeing to his guns, or there's just a hundred things he might be doing.
What would ye say if, may-be, Miss Oona was to write one of her bonnie
little notties on that awfu' bonnie paper, with her name upon't, and
tell him ye wanted to see him at ten o'clock or eleven o'clock, or
whatever time you please?"

"Or we might go over to-night in the boat," said Hamish, laconically.

Mrs. Forrester was used to take much counsel. She turned from one to the
other with uncertain looks. "But, Oona," she said, "you are saying
nothing! and you are generally the foremost. If it is not just nonsense
and a joke of John Shaw's----"

"I think," said Oona, "that Mr. Shaw will surely find some other way;
but it was no joke, mother. Who would joke on such a subject? He said if
Lord Erradeen called we were to use our influence."

"That would I," said Mrs. Forrester, "use my influence. I would just tell
him, You must not do it. Bless me, a young man new in the country to
take a step like that and put every person against him! No, no, it is
not possible: but a lady," she added, bridling a little with her smile
of innocent vanity, "a lady may say anything--she may say things that
another person cannot. I would just tell him, You must not do it! and
that would be all that would be needed. But bless me, Oona, how are we
to use our influence unless we can see him?--and I cannot see how we are
to get at him."

"Oh, mem!" cried Mysie, impeding Hamish's oars as she stretched over his
shoulder, "just one of Miss Oona's little notties!"

But this was a step that required much reflection, and at which the
anxious mother shook her head.




CHAPTER XV.


It had rained all night, and the morning was wet and cold; the water
dull like lead, the sky a mass of clouds; all the bare branches of the
trees dropping limp in the humid air. Mrs. Forrester, on further
thought, had not permitted Oona to write even the smallest of her "bit
notties" to Lord Erradeen; for, though she lived on an isle in Loch
Houran, this lady flattered herself that she knew the world. She indited
a little epistle of her own, in which she begged him to come and see her
upon what she might call a matter of business--a thing that concerned
his own affairs. This was carried by Hamish, but it received no reply.
Lord Erradeen was out. Where could he be out on a Sabbath day at night,
in a place where there were no dinner parties, nor any club, nor the
temptations of a town, but just a lonely country place? Nor was there
any answer in the morning, which was more wonderful still. It was
ill-bred, Mrs. Forrester thought, and she was more than ever glad that
her daughter had not been involved in the matter. But Hamish had
information which was not communicated to the drawing-room, and over
which Mysie and he laid their heads together in the kitchen. The poor
young gentleman was off his head altogether, the servants said. The door
was just left open, and he came in, nobody knew when. He could not bear
that anybody should say a word to him. There had been thoughts among
them of sending for his mother, and old Symington showed to Hamish a
telegram prepared for Mr. Milnathort, acquainting him with the state of
affairs, which he had not yet ventured to send--"For he will come to
himself soon or syne," the old man said; "it's just the weird of the
Me'vens that is upon him." Symington was indifferent to the fate of the
poor crofters. He said "the factor will ken what to do." He was not a
Loch Houran man.

On the Monday, however, the feeling of all the little population on the
isle ran very high. The wet morning, the leaden loch, the low-lying
clouds oppressed the mental atmosphere, and the thought of the poor
people turned out of their houses in the rain, increased the misery of
the situation in a way scarcely to be expected in the west, where it is
supposed to rain for ever. At eleven o'clock Oona appeared in her
thickest ulster and her strongest boots.

"I am going up to see old Jenny," she said, with a little air of
determination.

"My dear, you will be just wet through; and are you sure your boots are
thick enough? You will come back to me with a heavy cold, and then what
shall we all do? But take some tea and sugar in your basket, Oona,"
said her mother. She went with the girl to the door in spite of these
half-objections, which did not mean anything. "And a bottle of my ginger
cordial might not be amiss--they all like it, poor bodies! And, Oona,
see, my dear, here are two pound notes. It's all I have of change, and
it's more than I can afford; but if it comes to the worst----But surely,
surely John Shaw, that is a very decent man, and comes of a good family,
will have found the means to do something!"

The kind lady stood at the door indifferent to the wet which every
breath of air shook from the glistening branches. It had ceased to rain,
and in the west there was a pale clearness, which made the leaden loch
more chilly still, yet was a sign of amelioration. Mrs. Forrester wrung
her hands, and cast one look at the glistening woods of Auchnasheen, and
another at the dark mass, on the edge of the water, of Kinloch Houran.
She did not know whether to be angry with Lord Erradeen for being so
ill-bred, or to compassionate him for the eclipse which he had
sustained. But, after all, he was a very secondary object in her mind in
comparison with Oona, whose course she watched in the boat, drawing a
long line across the leaden surface of the water. She was just like the
dove out of the ark, Mrs. Forrester thought.

The little hamlet of Truach-Glas was at some distance from the loch.
Oona walked briskly along the coach road for two miles or thereabouts,
then turned up to the left on a road which narrowed as it ascended till
it became little more than a cart track, with a footway at the side. In
the broader valley below a substantial farmhouse, with a few outlying
cottages, was the only point of habitation, and on either side of the
road a few cultivated fields, chiefly of turnips and potatoes, were all
that broke the stretches of pasture, extending to the left as high as
grass would grow, up the dark slopes of the hills. But the smaller glen
on the right had a more varied and lively appearance, and was broken
into small fields bearing signs of cultivation tolerably high up, some
of them still yellow with the stubble of the late harvest, the poor
little crop of oats or barley which never hoped to ripen before October,
if then. A mountain stream, which was scarcely a thread of water in the
summer, now leaped fiercely enough, turbid and swollen, from rock to
rock in its rapid descent. The houses clustered on a little tableland at
some height above the road, where a few gnarled hawthorns, rowans, and
birches were growing. They were poor enough to have disgusted any social
reformer, or political economist; grey growths of rough stones, which
might have come together by chance, so little shape was there in the
bulging walls. Only a few of them had even the rough chimney at one end
wattled with ropes of straw, which showed an advanced civilisation. The
others had nothing but the hole in the roof, which is the first and
homeliest expedient of primitive ventilation. It might have been
reasonably asked what charm these hovels could have to any one to make
them worth struggling for. But reason is not lord of all.

There was no appearance of excitement about the place when Oona, walking
quickly, and a little out of breath, reached the foremost houses. The
men and boys were out about their work, up the hill, or down the water,
in the occupations of the day; and indeed there were but few men, at any
time, about the place. Three out of the half-dozen houses were tenanted
by "widow women," one with boys who cultivated her little holding, one
who kept going with the assistance of a hired lad, while the third lived
upon her cow, which the neighbours helped her to take care of. The chief
house of the community, and the only one which bore something of a
comfortable aspect, was that of Duncan Fraser, who had the largest
allotment of land, and who, though he had fallen back so far with his
rent as to put himself in the power of the law, was one of the class
which as peasant proprietors are thought to be the strength of France.
If the land had been his own he would have found existence very possible
under the hard and stern conditions which were natural to him, and
probably would have brought up for the Church, Robbie his eldest boy,
who had got all the parish school could give him, and was still
dreaming, as he cut the peats or hoed the potatoes, of Glasgow College
and the world. Of the other two houses, one was occupied by an old pair
whose children were out in the world, and who managed, by the
contributions of distant sons and daughters, to pay their rent. The
last was in the possession of a "weirdless" wight, who loved whisky
better than home or holding, and whose wife and children toiled through
as best they could the labour of their few fields.

There were about twenty children in the six houses, all ruddy,
weatherbeaten, flaxen-haired, the girls tied up about their shoulders in
little tartan shawls, and very bare about their legs; the boys in every
kind of quaint garments, little bags of trousers, cobbled out of bigger
garments by workwomen more frugal than artistic. The rent had failed,
for how was money to be had on these levels? but the porridge had never
altogether failed. A few little ones were playing "about the doors" in a
happy superiority to all prejudices on the subject of mud and puddles.
One woman was washing her clothes at her open door. Old Jenny, whom Oona
had come to see, was out upon her doorstep, gazing down the glen to
watch the footsteps of her precious "coo," which a lass of ten with
streaming hair was leading out to get a mouthful of wet grass. Jenny's
mind was always in a flutter lest something should happen to the cow.

"Ye would pass her by upon the road, Miss Oona," the old woman said,
"and how would ye think she was looking? To get meat to her, it's just
a' my thought; but I canna think she will be none the worse for a bit
mouthfu' on the hill."

"But, Jenny, have you nothing to think of but the cow? It will not be
true then, that the time of grace is over, and that the sheriff's
officers are coming to turn you all out?"

"The sheriff's officers!" cried Jenny. She took the edge of her apron in
her hand and drew the hem slowly through her fingers, which was a sign
of perplexity: but yet she was quite composed. "Na, na, Miss Oona,
they'll never turn us out. What wad I be thinking about but the coo?
She's my breadwinner and a' my family. Hoots no, they'll never turn us
out."

"But Mr. Shaw was in great trouble yesterday. He said this was the last
day----"

"I never fash'd my thoom about it," said Jenny. "The last day! It's
maybe the last, or the first, I would never be taking no notice. For the
factor, he's our great friend, and he would not be letting them do it.
No, no; it would but be his jokes," the old woman said.

Was it his jokes? This was the second time the idea had been presented
to her; but Oona remembered the factor's serious face.

"You all seem very quiet here," she said; "not as if any trouble was
coming. But has there not been trouble, Jenny, about your rent or
something?"

"Muckle trouble," said Jenny; "they were to have taken the coo. What
would have become of me if they had ta'en the coo? Duncan, they have
ta'en his, puir lad. To see it go down the brae was enough to break your
heart. But John Shaw he's a kind man; he would not be letting them
meddle with us. He just said 'It's a lone woman; my lord can do without
it better than the old wife can do without it,' he said. He's a kind
man, and so my bonnie beast was saved. I was wae for Duncan; but still,
Miss Oona, things is no desperate so lang as you keep safe your ain
coo."

"That is true," said Oona with a little laugh. There must, she thought,
be some mistake, or else Mr. Shaw had found Lord Erradeen, and without
the help of any influence had moved him to pity the cotters. Under this
consolation she got out her tea and sugar, and other trifles which had
been put into the basket. It was a basket that was well known in the
neighbourhood, and had conveyed many a little dainty in time of need.
Jenny was grateful for the little packets of tea and sugar which she
took more or less as a right, but looked with a curious eye at the
"ginger cordial" for which Mrs. Forrester was famous. It was not a
wicked thing like whisky, no, no: but it warmed ye on a cold day. Jenny
would not have objected to a drop. While she eyed it there became
audible far off voices down the glen, and sounds as of several people
approaching, sounds very unusual in this remote corner of the world.
Jenny forgot the ginger cordial and Oona ran to the door to see what it
was, and the woman who had been washing paused in her work, and old
Nancy Robertson, she whose rent was paid, and who had no need to fear
any sheriff's officers, came out to her door. Even the children stopped
in their game.

The voices were still far off, down upon the road, upon which there was
a group of men, scarcely distinguishable at this distance. Simon
Fraser's wife, she who had been washing, called out that it was Duncan
talking to the factor; but who were those other men? A sense of
approaching trouble came upon the women. Nelly Fraser wiped the soapsuds
from her arms, and wrung her hands still fresh from her tub. She was
always prepared for evil, as is natural to a woman with a "weirdless"
husband. Old Jenny, for her part, thought at once of the coo. She flew,
as well as her old legs would carry her, to the nearest knoll, and
shrieked to the fair-haired little lass who was slowly following that
cherished animal to bring Brockie back. "Bring her back, ye silly thing.
Will ye no be seeing--but I mauna say that," she added in an undertone.
"Bring back the coo! Bring her back! Jessie, my lamb, bring back the
coo." What with old Jenny shrieking, and the voices in the distance, and
something magnetic and charged with disorder in the air, people began to
appear from all the houses. One of the widow's sons, a red and hairy
lad, came running in, in his heavy boots, from the field where he was
working. Duncan Fraser's daughter set down a basket of peat which she
was carrying in, and called her mother to the door. "There's my father
with the factor and twa-three strange men," said the girl, "and oh, what
will they be wanting here?" Thus the women and children looked on with
growing terror, helpless before the approach of fate, as they might have
done two centuries before, when the invaders were rapine and murder,
instead of calm authority and law.

When Oona made her appearance half an hour before everything had been
unquestioning tranquillity and peace. Now, without a word said, all was
alarm. The poor people did not know what was going to happen, but they
felt that something was going to happen. They had been living on a
volcano, easily, quietly, without thinking much of it. But now the fire
was about to blaze forth. Through the minds of those that were mothers
there ran a calculation as swift as light. "What will we do with the
bairns? what will we do with Granny? and the bits of plenishing?" they
said to each other. The younger ones were half pleased with the
excitement, not knowing what it was. Meantime Duncan and Mr. Shaw came
together up the road, the poor man arguing with great animation and
earnestness, the factor listening with a troubled countenance and
sometimes shaking his head. Behind them followed the servants of the
law, those uncomfortable officials to whom the odium of their occupation
clings, though it is no fault of theirs.

"No, Mr. Shaw, we canna pay. You know that as well as I do; but oh, sir,
give us a little time. Would you turn the weans out on the hill and the
auld folk? What would I care if it was just to me? But think upon the
wake creatures--my auld mother that is eighty, and the bairns. If my
lord will not let us off there's some of the other gentry that are kind
and will lend us a helping hand. Oh, give us time! My lord that is
young and so well off, he canna surely understand. What is it to him?
and to us it's life and death."

"Duncan, my man," said the factor, "you are just breaking my heart. I
know all that as well as you; but what can I do? It is the last day, and
we have to act or we just make fools of ourselves. My lord might have
stopped it, but he has not seen fit. For God's sake say no more for I
cannot do it. Ye just break my heart!"

By this time the women were within hearing, and stood listening with
wistful faces, turning from one to another. When he paused they struck
in together, moving towards him eagerly.

"Oh, Mr. Shaw, you've always been our friend," cried Duncan's wife; "you
canna mean that you've come to turn us out to the hill, with all the
little ones and granny?"

"Oh, sir!" cried the other, "have pity upon me that has nae prop nor
help but just a weirdless man."

"Me, I have nae man ava, but just thae hands to travail for my bairns,"
said a third.

And then there came a shriller tone of indignation. "The young lord,
he'll just get a curse--he'll get no blessing."

The factor made a deprecating gesture with his hands "I can do nothing,
I can do nothing," he said. "Take your bairns down the glen to my
housekeeper Marg'ret; take them down to the town, the rest of ye--they
shall not want. Whatever I can do, I'll do. But for God's sake do not
stop us with your wailin', for it has to be done; it is no fault of
mine."

This appeal touched one of the sufferers at least with a movement of
fierce irony. Duncan uttered a short, sharp laugh, which rung strangely
into the air, so full of passion. "Haud your tongues, women," he cried,
"and no vex Mr. Shaw; you're hurting his feelings," with a tone
impossible to describe, in which wrath and misery and keen indignation
and ridicule contended for the mastery. He was the only man in the
desolate group. He drew a few steps apart and folded his arms upon his
breast, retiring in that pride of despair which a cotter ruined may
experience no less than a king vanquished, from further struggle or
complaint. The women neither understood nor noted the finer meaning in
his words. They had but one thought, the misery before them. They
crowded round the factor, all speaking in one breath, grasping his arm
to call his attention--almost mobbing him with distracted appeals, with
the wild natural eloquence of their waving hands and straining eyes.

Meanwhile there were other elements, some comic enough, in the curious
circle round. Old Nancy Robertson had not left the doorstep where she
stood keenly watching in the composure and superiority of one whom
nobody could touch, who had paid her rent, and was above the world. It
was scarcely possible not to be a little complacent in the superiority
of her circumstances, or to refrain from criticising the unseemly
excitement of the others. She had her spectacles on her nose, and her
head projected, and she thought they were all like play-actors with
their gesticulations and cries. "I wouldna be skreighin' like that--no
me," she said. Round about the fringe of children gaped and gazed, some
stolid with amaze, some pale in a vague sympathetic misery, none of them
quite without a certain enjoyment of this extraordinary episode and
stimulation of excitement. And old Jenny, awakened to no alarm about her
cottage, still stood upon her knoll, with her whole soul intent upon the
fortunes of Brockie, who had met the sheriff's officers in full career.
The attempts of her little guardian to turn the cow back from her whiff
of pasture had only succeeded in calling the special attention of these
invaders. They stopped short, and one of them taking a piece of rope
from his pocket secured it round the neck of the frightened animal, who
stood something like a woman in a similar case, looking to left and to
right, not knowing in her confusion which way to bolt, though the
intention was evident in her terrified eyes. At this Jenny gave a shriek
of mingled rage and terror, which in its superior force and concentrated
passion rang through all the other sounds, silencing for the moment even
the wailing of the women--and flung herself into the midst of the
struggle. She was a dry, little, withered old woman, nimble and light,
and ran like a hare or rabbit down the rough road without a pause or
stumble.

"My coo!" cried Jenny, "ye sallna tak' her; ye sall tak' my heart's
blood first. My coo! Miss Oona, Miss Oona, will you just be standing by,
like nothing at all, and letting them tak' my coo? G'way, ye robbers,"
Jenny shrieked, flinging one arm about the neck of the alarmed brute,
while she pushed away its captor with the other. Her arm was still
vigorous, though she was old. The man stumbled and lost his hold of the
rope; the cow, liberated, tossed head and tail into the air and flung
off to the hill-side like a deer. The shock threw Jenny down and stunned
her. This made a little diversion in the dismal scene above.

And now it became evident that whatever was to be done must be done,
expression being exhausted on the part of the victims, who stood about
in a blank of overwrought feeling awaiting the next move. The factor
made a sign with his hand, and sat down upon a ledge of rock opposite
the cottages, his shaggy eyebrows curved over his eyes, his hat drawn
down upon his brows. A sort of silent shock ran through the beholders
when the men entered the first cottage: and when they came out again
carrying a piece of furniture, there was a cry, half savage in its wild
impotence. Unfortunately the first thing that came to their hands was a
large wooden cradle, in which lay a baby tucked up under the big
patchwork quilt, which bulged out on every side. As it was set down upon
its large rockers on the uneven ground the little sleeper gave a
startled wail; and then it was that that cry, sharp and keen, dividing
the silence like a knife, burst from the breasts of the watching people.
It was Nelly Fraser's baby, who had the "weirdless" man. She stood with
her bare arms wrapped in her apron beside her abandoned washing-tub, and
gazed as if incapable of movement, with a face like ashes, at the
destruction of her home. But while the mother stood stupefied, a little
thing of three or four, which had been clinging to her skirts in keen
baby wonder and attention, when she saw the cradle carried forth into
the open air immediately took the place of guardian. Such an incident
had never happened in all little Jeanie's experience before. She trotted
forth, abandoning all alarm, to the road in which it was set down, and,
turning a little smiling face of perfect content to the world, began to
rock it softly with little coos of soothing and rills of infant
laughter. The sombre background round, with all its human misery, made a
dismal foil to this image of innocent satisfaction. The factor jumped up
and turned his back upon the scene altogether, biting his nails and
lowering his brows in a fury of wretchedness. And at last the poor women
began to stir and take whispered counsel with each other. There was no
longer room for either hope or entreaty; the only thing to be thought of
now was what to do.

The next cottage was that of Nancy Robertson, who still held her
position on her doorstep, watching the proceedings with a keen but
somewhat complacent curiosity. They gave her an intense sense of
self-importance and superiority, though she was not without feeling.
When, however, the men, who had warmed to their work, and knew no
distinction between one and another, approached her, a sudden panic and
fury seized the old woman. She defied them shrilly, flying at the throat
of the foremost with her old hands. The wretchedness of the poor women
whose children were being thrust out shelterless did not reach the wild
height of passion of her whose lawful property was threatened.

"Villains!" she shrieked, "will ye break into my hoose? What right have
ye in my hoose? I'll brack your banes afore you put a fit into my
hoose."

"Whist, whist, wife," said one of the men; "let go now, or I'll have to
hurt ye. You canna stop us. You'll just do harm to yourself."

"John Shaw, John Shaw," shrieked Nancy, "do ye see what they're doing?
and me that has paid my rent, no like those weirdless fuils. Do ye hear
me speak? I've paid my rent to the last farden. I've discharged a' my
debts, as I wuss ithers would discharge their debts to me." Her voice
calmed down as the factor turned and made an impatient sign to the men.
"Ye see," said Nancy, making a little address to her community, "what it
is to have right on your side. They canna meddle with me. My man's auld,
and I have everything to do for mysel', but they canna lay a hand on
me.

"Oh, hold your tongue, woman," cried Duncan Fraser. "If ye canna help
us, ye can let us be."

"And wha says that I canna help ye? I am just saying--I pay my debts as
I wuss that ithers should pay their debts to me: and that's Scripter,"
said Nancy; but she added, "I never said I would shut my door to a
neebor: ye can bring in Granny here; I'm no just a heart of stane like
that young lord."

The women had not waited to witness Nancy's difficulties. Most of them
had gone into their houses, to take a shawl from a cupboard, a book from
the "drawers-head." One or two appeared with the family Bible under
their arm. "The Lord kens where we are to go, but we must go somewhere,"
they said. There was a little group about Oona and her two pound notes.
The moment of excitement was over, and they had now nothing to do but to
meet their fate. The factor paced back and forward on the path, going
out of his way to avoid here and there a pile of poor furniture. And the
work of devastation went on rapidly: it is so easy, alas, to dismantle a
cottage with its but and ben. Duncan Fraser did not move till two or
three had been emptied. When he went in to bring out his mother, there
was a renewed sensation among the worn-out people who were scarcely
capable of any further excitement. Granny was Granny to all the glen.
She was the only survivor of her generation. They had all known her from
their earliest days. They stood worn and sorrow-stricken, huddled
together in a little crowd, waiting before they took any further steps,
till Granny should come.

But it was not Granny who came first. Some one, a stranger even to the
children, whose attention was so easily attracted by any novelty,
appeared suddenly round a corner of the hill. He paused at the
unexpected sight of the little cluster of habitations; for the country
was unknown to him; and for a moment appeared as if he would have turned
back. But the human excitement about this scene caught him in spite of
himself. He gazed at it for a moment trying to divine what was
happening, then came on slowly with hesitating steps. He had been out
all the morning, as he had been for some days before. His being had
sustained a great moral shock, and for the moment all his holds on life
seemed gone. This was the first thing that had moved him even to the
faintest curiosity. He came forward slowly, observed by no one. The
factor was still standing with his back to the woeful scene, gloomily
contemplating the distant country, while Oona moved about in the midst
of the women, joining in their consultations, and doing her best to
rouse poor Nelly, who sat by her baby's cradle like a creature dazed and
capable of no further thought. There was, therefore, no one to recognise
Lord Erradeen as he came slowly into the midst of this tragedy, not
knowing what it was. The officials had recovered their spirits as they
got on with their work. Natural pity and sympathetic feeling had yielded
to the carelessness of habit and common occupation. They had begun to
make rough jokes with each other, to fling the cotters' possessions
carelessly out of the windows, to give each other catches with a "Hi!
tak' this," flinging the things about. Lord Erradeen had crossed the
little bridge, and was in the midst of the action of the painful drama,
when they brought out from Duncan's house his old mother's chair. It was
cushioned with pillows, one of which tumbled out into the mud and was
roughly caught up by the rough fellow who carried it, and flung at his
companion's head, with a laugh and jest. It was he who first caught
sight of the stranger, a new figure among the disconsolate crowd. He
gave a whistle to his comrade to announce a novelty, and rattled down
hastily out of his hands the heavy chair. Walter was wholly roused by
the strangeness of this pantomime. It brought back something to his
mind, though he could scarcely tell what. He stepped in front of the man
and asked, "What does this mean?" in a hasty and somewhat imperious
tone; but his eyes answered his question almost before he had asked it.
Nelly Fraser with her pile of furniture, her helpless group of children,
her stupefied air of misery, was full in the foreground, and the ground
was strewed with other piles. Half of the houses in the hamlet were
already gutted. One poor woman was lifting her bedding out of the wet,
putting it up upon chairs; another stood regarding hers helplessly, as
if without energy to attempt even so small a salvage.

"What is the meaning of all this?" the young man cried imperiously
again.

His voice woke something in the deep air of despondency and misery which
had not been there before. It caught the ear of Oona, who pushed the
women aside in sudden excitement. It roused--was it a faint thrill of
hope in the general despair? Last of all it reached the factor, who,
standing gloomily apart, had closed himself up in angry wretchedness
against any appeal. He did not hear this, but somehow felt it in the
air, and turned round, not knowing what the new thing was. When he saw
Lord Erradeen, Shaw was seized as with a sudden frenzy. He turned round
upon him sharply, with an air which was almost threatening.

"What does it mean?" he said. "It means your will and pleasure, Lord
Erradeen, not mine. God is my witness, no will of mine. You brute!"
cried the factor, suddenly, "what are you doing? Stand out of the way,
and let the honest woman pass. Get out of her way, I tell you, or I'll
send ye head foremost down the glen!"

This sudden outcry, which was a relief to the factor's feelings, was
addressed not to Walter, but to the man who, coming out again with a new
armful, came rudely in the way of the old Granny, to whom all the glen
looked up, and who was coming out with a look of bewilderment on her
aged face, holding by her son's arm. Granny comprehended vaguely, if at
all, what was going on. She gave a momentary glance of suspicion at the
fellow who pushed against her, then looked out with a faint smile at the
two gentlemen standing in front of the door. Her startled mind recurred
to its old instincts with but a faint perception of anything new.

"Sirs," she said, in her feeble old voice, "I am distressed I canna ask
ye in; but I'm feckless mysel, being a great age, and there's some
flitting going on, and my good-daughter she is out of the way."

"Do you hear that, my lord?" cried Shaw; "the old wife is making her
excuses for not asking you into a house you are turning her out of at
the age of eighty-three. Oh, I am not minding if I give ye offence! I
have had enough of it. Find another factor, Lord Erradeen. I would
rather gather stones upon the fields than do again what I have done this
day."

Walter looked about like a man awakened from a dream. He said, almost
with awe--

"Is this supposed to be done by me? I know nothing of it, nor the
reason. What is the reason? I disown it altogether as any act of mine."

"Oh, my lord," cried Shaw, who was in a state of wild excitement, "there
is the best of reasons. Rent--your lordship understands that--a little
more money lest your coffers should not be full enough. And as for these
poor bodies, they have so much to put up with, a little more does not
matter. They have not a roof to their heads, but that's nothing to your
lordship. You can cover the hills with sheep, and they can--die--if
they like," cried the factor, avenging himself for all he had suffered.
He turned away with a gesture of despair and fury. "I have done enough;
I wash my hands of it," he cried.

Walter cast around him a bewildered look. To his own consciousness he
was a miserable and helpless man; but all the poor people about gazed at
him, wistful, deprecating, as at a sort of unknown, unfriendly god, who
had their lives in his hands. The officers perhaps thought it a good
moment to show their zeal in the eyes of the young lord. They made a
plunge into the house once more, and appeared again, one carrying
Duncan's bed, a great, slippery, unwieldy sack of chaff, another charged
with the old, tall, eight-day clock, which he jerked along as if it had
been a man hopping from one foot to another.

"We'll soon be done, my lord," the first said in an encouraging tone,
"and then a' the commotion will just die away."

Lord Erradeen had been lost in a miserable dream. He woke up now at this
keen touch of reality, and found himself in a position so abhorrent and
antagonistic to all his former instincts and traditions, that his very
being seemed to stand still in the horror of the moment. Then a sudden
passionate energy filled all his veins. The voice in which he ordered
the men back rang through the glen. He had flung himself upon one of
them in half-frantic rage, before he was aware what he was doing,
knocking down the astounded official, who got up rubbing his elbow, and
declaring it was no fault of his; while Walter glared at him, not
knowing what he did. But after this encounter with flesh and blood Lord
Erradeen recovered his reason. He turned round quickly, and with his own
hands carried back Granny's chair. The very weight of it, the touch of
something to do, brought life into his veins. He took the old woman from
her son's arm, and led her in reverently, supporting her upon his own:
then going out again without a word, addressed himself to the manual
work of restoration. From the moment of his first movement, the whole
scene changed in the twinkling of an eye. The despairing apathy of the
people gave way to a tumult of haste and activity. Duncan Fraser was the
first to move.

"My lord!" he cried; "if you are my lord," his stern composure yielding
to tremulous excitement, "if it's your good will and pleasure to let us
bide, that's all we want. Take no trouble for us; take no thought for
that." Walter gave him a look, almost without intelligence. He had not a
word to say. He was not sufficiently master of himself to express the
sorrow and anger and humiliation in his awakened soul; but he could
carry back the poor people's things, which was a language of nature not
to be misunderstood. He went on taking no heed of the eager assistance
offered on all sides. "I'll do it, my lord. Oh, dinna you trouble. It's
ower much kindness. Ye'll fyle your fingers; ye'll wear out your
strength. We'll do it; we'll do it," the people cried.

The cottagers' doors flew open as by magic; they worked all together,
the women, the children, and Duncan Fraser, and Lord Erradeen. Even Oona
joined, carrying the little children back to their homes, picking up
here a bird in a cage, there a little stunted geranium or musk in a pot.
In half an hour it seemed, or less, the whole was done, and when the
clouds that had been lowering on the hills and darkening the atmosphere
broke and began to pour down torrents of rain upon the glen, the little
community was housed and comfortable once more.

While this excitement lasted Walter was once more the healthful and
vigorous young man who had travelled with Oona on the coach, and laughed
with her on the Isle. But when the storm was over, and they walked
together towards the loch, she became aware of the difference in him. He
was very serious, pale, almost haggard now that the excitement was over.
His smiling lips smiled no longer, there was in his eyes, once so
light-hearted and careless, a sort of hunted, anxious look.

"No," he said, in answer to her questions, "I have not been ill; I have
had--family matters to occupy me: and of this I knew nothing. Letters? I
had none, I received nothing. I have been occupied, too much perhaps,
with--family affairs."

Upon this no comment could be made, but his changed looks made so great
a claim upon her sympathy that Oona looked at him with eyes that were
almost tender in their pity. He turned round suddenly and met her
glance.

"You know," he said, with a slight tremble in his voice, "that there are
some things--they say in every family--a little hard to bear. But I have
been too much absorbed--I was taken by surprise. It shall happen no
more." He held his head high, and looked round him as if to let some one
else see the assurance he was giving her. "I promise you," he added, in
a tone that rang like a defiance, "it shall happen no more!" Then he
added hurriedly with a slight swerve aside, and trembling in his voice,
"Do you think I might come with you? Would Mrs. Forrester have me at the
Isle?"


END OF VOL. I.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Transcriber's Note: Hyphen variations left as printed.]


[The end of _The Wizard's Son, Volume 1_ by Margaret Oliphant]